With all of the resources available to you, you may well ask yourself, “Why do I need a computer expert to maintain my computer?” The short answer is, you don’t. Just like you don’t need a technician to fix your car, repair your furnace, or do any other maintenance or repairs. If you have the knowledge and the time, you can easily repair and maintain your own computer.

But be warned, there are several potential “gotchas” involved in maintaining your own computer. If you decide to repair your own automobile, a company won’t sell you a carburetor what will break your car. Unfortunately, that’s not true of computer maintenance. There are many programs out there that either don’t do what they purport to do, perform unnecessary functions, or are just plain dangerous to install. It’s up to you, the computer maintenance technician, to determine what programs you can safely use in what manner.

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the programs out there and what the do-it-yourselfer needs to watch out for.

Registry Cleaners Websites such as Finally Fast.com and Double My Speed.com have been promoting themselves heavily of late. These (and other) sites offer products to download and install that purport to improve your computer’s performance. These programs are mostly registry cleaners. The Windows registry is simply a database that the operating system uses to store everything it needs to know to run as per your specifications. In addition, it’s available to any other program to write their information in there as well. Since Windows 95, the registry has been the recommended repository for user preferences, settings, and any other variables a program has to remember.

Over time the Windows registry will become cluttered with unneeded information, most frequently caused by uninstallation programs not removing all of the data they should. The concept of a registry cleaner is that it will detect and remove these orphan settings, frequently improving computer performance.

The problem with registry cleaners is that they will often incorrectly detect a setting as unneeded and delete it, causing problems with either installed programs or the Windows operating system itself. Registry cleaners are good, but you should never blindly take their advice as to what to delete. You should always review each entry to verify that it can be deleted safely.

And keep in mind there are freeware applications that do an excellent job of cleaning your Windows registry. Ccleaner is the one recommended by The Computer Psychic. (Go to Google and search for ccleaner.)

Anti-Malware Applications Malware (spyware and virus) cleanup and prevention is one of the most important aspects of computer maintenance. If you catch a virus on your system, you leave yourself open to all sorts of mischief – including having files deleted, getting your address book scammed and spam e-mails being sent in your name, and even having your credit card and banking information stolen! Spyware can be just as bad – it typically “watches” what you do on your computer, down to even logging keystrokes, and thus stealing your passwords. In addition to these problems, spyware and viruses are often poorly written, causing performance problems in your system.

There are dozens of applications on the market that claim to remove malware from your system. And many of them do a good job. But here’s the rub – many programs that present themselves as anti-virus or anti-spyware are, themselves, viruses and spyware! The Computer Psychic has seen all too many systems where the owner has – with the best of intentions – installed an anti-malware app into their system, only to see the floodgates opened; they find themselves with more popup ads and performance problems than they’ve ever seen before.

So how do you make sure you don’t install one of these #$%& programs? First of all, if you get a pop-up message telling you that your computer is infected with viruses and click here to download a virus cleaner, don’t do it! Without exception, these programs are scams. Downloading one of these apps will introduce your system to more viruses than you thought existed. In fact, when you see this window, you’ll be presented with an OK and Cancel button. Don’t click either one! If you click Cancel, it will still install a virus. Instead, click on the little X in the upper right-hand corner to close the window.

Secondly, if you use a search engine looking for anti-malware programs, be careful what links you follow. Malware creators will name their applications very similar to – or even exactly the same as – legitimate programs, hoping to confuse you into downloading theirs instead of the good one. For example, if you wanted to download Spybot Search and Destroy (an excellent anti-spyware program) and searched for it in Yahoo, the very first result you’ll find purports itself to be Spybot. Clicking their link takes you to a page that says it’s Spybot Search and Destroy, but is actually an application that acts as a gateway to allow viruses into your system.

So, again, you need to take the time to learn what is and what isn’t safe to install. The Computer Psychic has a very easy recommendation. Microsoft has a vested interest in keeping your computer malware-free. If they do a good job of preventing viruses from getting into your system, then that’s one less thing that Apple can beat them up over. Towards that end, in September of 2009, Microsoft released an excellent free anti-malware program named Microsoft Security Essentials (www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials). In the past, The Computer Psychic has recommended against all-in-one solutions, arguing that no one application can catch everything. But Microsoft Security Essentials is just that good. It does as good a job as – or better than – any other application, or combination of apps, in blocking any type of spyware or virus.

Startup Monitors While not as popular as the other system maintenance programs, proper use of a startup monitor can dramatically speed up your computer. A startup monitor will tell you just what programs, drivers and processes load when you start your computer.

When you boot up your computer, the operating system will also auto-start many other components – possibly a fax application, printer elements, video or mouse drivers, to name a few. These are good – they are essential for the proper operation of your computer. However, many applications add themselves to the auto-run settings for their own convenience – not yours.

For example, programs such as Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office will tell the operating system to pre-load some of their components as Windows starts up. This allows their software to open more quickly when needed. The downside of this is, even if you aren’t actively using their software, your computer is using memory running those components. Better to not pre-load those components; let the software take a second or two longer to load, and speed up your entire system.

Another popular use for the startup is for auto-update programs. These apps will periodically check the internet looking for updates. If one is found, the program will present you with a window telling you an update is available. Not only do these apps consume computer resources, they can be an annoyance.

In order to easily prevent unwanted software from running automatically, The Computer Psychic recommends a Microsoft application called AutoRuns (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx). Using Autoruns you can decide just what apps you want to run when starting your computer. Once again, though, don’t blindly turn of all apps. Make sure you know what you’re disabling.

Summary

As you can see, using the tools recommended in this article makes it quite possible for anyone to maintain their computer’s health. But as with anything technical, make sure you know what you’re doing before just tinkering away.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/computer-care-can-i-do-it-myself-1556451.html

About the Author

With over 20 years industry experience, Steven O Smith is the owner of The Computer Psychic, providing affordable on-site computer repair to residences and business in the Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR area. Visit http://www.thecomputerpsychic.com for more valuable information and free software.

TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

KUMAH ERIC JUNIOR

MARCH 2009

ABSTRACT:

In today’s world, technology has invaded many aspects of human life. From its gigantic influence on our education and professional development, to the more subtle presence of little gadgets littering our homes, technology is almost everywhere.

The reasons for such pervasiveness would boil down to some characteristics that technology by itself possesses. One such characteristic, which is of major interest to many scholars, is the seeming lack of barriers to the spread of technology. It easily penetrates societies and even to remote communities, and once it reaches its destination and catches on, it becomes seemingly difficult to stop its spread. As a result of this, consumer technology like cellular phones, computers, PDAs, radios and televisions have become commonplace in places like Africa, even with all the barriers one would have envisaged.

Sadly, it does not need much analysis to realize that even though technology usage is growing rapidly in Africa, we still have numerous developmental problems in our continent. This is a situation where advanced technology is coexisting with underdevelopment in Africa. With all the power that technology wields, it will be a useful exercise to study the ways in which it can be used to solve some of those very problems it has come to meet. In essence, using our little gadgets to solve our big problems.

This is the background against which this study is undertaken. Asking whether our problems can be solved at all, then enumerating instances where development projects that utilize technology have been put to work, and concluding by examining the cases and drawing lessons from them.

CHAPTER. 1.

INTRODUCTION

The limits to what the human mind can conceive and achieve are increasing. More discoveries have been made, more things have been created, more theories have been proved and disproved, more machines have been made and more problems have been created. Scientific technology has been the driving force behind all these. Science has indeed proved to be a powerful tool which has touched many people and has shaped many communities.

According to the Concise Oxford dictionary 10th edition, technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. Clearly from this definition we can see that scientific knowledge may exist theoretically but it only becomes technology when it is used in practical settings. For example we may say the knowledge of the rules of up-thrust and buoyancy is theoretical, however practical utilization of these rules to manufacture airplanes could be termed aircraft technology.

Again according to the Concise Oxford dictionary 10th edition, a community is the people of an area considered collectively, while development is explained to mean to grow or cause to grow and become larger or more advanced. By deduction, community development could be explained to be the growth or advancement of a group of people.

Today, the world has become highly technological, and things which in the seventies would have passed for science fiction are now so commonplace that they have almost become necessities. From every corner of the world, technology has global acceptance, it is ubiquitous and has the ability to dramatically change situations.

Any attempt to ascribe reasons for this pervasiveness of technology will have many suggestions, some of which are that machines have been proven more efficient than humans at some tasks, machines are less error prone, impartial and never get tired like humans. Another could be the increased sophistication of humans and the attendant need for equally complicated messengers to help us perform many tasks, which is linked to the interesting nature of technology that once a more advanced way of doing something is found, it becomes almost unthinkable to try to do it by “old fashioned” means.

With such large scale interplay of these and many more factors, there is little reason to be surprised by the sudden emergence of automatic machines to handle the little tasks of old; cleaning floors, washing clothes, cutting bread, mixing cake etc. the list goes on and on.

And that is far from all and the list of innovative possibilities is endless. In truth, some of these innovations have shaped the world and there are many examples to cite. The discovery of electricity and the radio wave both changed the world. Today, computers are changing the world even faster. Now with cellular phones, new opportunities have come and our imagination has become the only limiting factor. We can only wait for the next big thing to be created and who knows what it will be?

The picture of technological advancement is not a completely rosy one. Indeed, there are some minuses to science as well, such as the introduction of new forms of danger which come as a consequence of innovative forms of technology, for example the nuclear bomb came from nuclear technology, unforeseen genetic mutations are as the result of genetic engineering, and the numerous and little talked about chemicals which can destroy the ozone or warm the planet.

The seriousness of the disadvantages of technology have prompted some people to argue that technological advancement, which is an example of scientific development, is making us more of advanced entities but less of humans. In other words, we have become better scientists, bankers and professionals and worse human beings. Martin Luther King puts this argument succinctly when he said “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power, we have guided missiles and misguided men.”

The disadvantages that technology brings are issues which require serious examination to ascertain what can be done to eliminate them or at least minimize their effects since technology has definitely come to stay, and it would be to our advantage to learn how to work with it in ways that will be the most beneficial to us.

But despite the disadvantages listed here and the many more unnamed, we have seen that we can still derive many benefits from science and given that we live in, or at least come from, a part of the world where development is still a big headache, we should be the first to start a serious study of this phenomenon and see how best we can use it to our advantage. We may be surprised to see that there is a great viability in using our little gadgets to solve our big problems.

Let us make it clear that the aim of this paper is not to present technology as the magic cure that will clear our multitude of problems in a whiff, technology alone will not solve Africa’s problems because our problems are too complex, too deep and too overwhelming for any simplistic scheme to be successful. We can only achieve success when if have a more comprehensive approach to the problem, to include solid commitment to serious research, establishment of the appropriate structures, and the taking of required initiatives. It will be incorrect to assume that technology in itself is inherently good, and just implementing it alone will be enough to achieve any good result3. Though technology may be able to do anything, people must have the vision to drive it in the right direction.

Only with this knowledge can we make any meaningful gains in the development agenda.

In our particular context, Africa has proved that advanced technology could coexist with underdevelopment. People have satellite televisions whilst there are no teachers in the classrooms, we have mobile devices and pocket PCs and devices but our streets are still not named properly, there is still a large number of illiterates among the people who own and use cell phones, spreading of healthcare information is still a challenge even though a lot of people have access to radio and TV. This sorry list is endless.

CHAPTER 2:

CAN TECHNOLOGY REALLY ADDRESS OUR PROBLEMS?

From healthcare, access to water and life expectancy, to governance, industrialization and even the quality of human life, there are numerous problems confronting African communities.

Today we are said to be living in the information age, an era where access to information is the new driving force of the world. The proliferation of the Internet and World Wide Web has reduced the whole world to a massive audience with unprecedented access to vast quantities of information. This communication is unencumbered and the formation of alliances is unhindered by physical distance, national or political borders4. With all the dynamics that this modernity brings, technology stands tall as a favourite to achieve any meaningful sustainable development for many reasons.

Principal among such reasons is the fact that there is improved awareness of underdevelopment among Africans themselves, which could be due to the information age, and an improved belief that our situations can be turned around. This is markedly different from decades ago when there was a lot of resignation and despair among black professionals. Evidence to support this would be the observation that much more thought is being directed at the Africa integration agenda and greater attention being paid to the Economic partnership agreements (EU- ECOWAS).

Another positive indicator is the growing number of trained and competent technological professionals on the face of the continent. Granted, the improved numbers by themselves will not be a good indicator, but with the holistic approach talked about earlier, one can see a sign of hope which shows that there is very high potential for success in a well though out scheme to utilize technology to solve our developmental problems.

Another good point is the individual work that is being carried out by different groups using different approaches (studies of the indigenous chieftaincy system for e.g.) at trying to solve the same problems. This is clear evidence to state that beyond the level of commitment, there have been actual attempts at problem solving. Even if some of such attempts have not been successful due to the numerous challenges in the way, the experiences have been gained and lessons have been drawn from them which would be utilized for future use.

Finally there are areas where major strides have already been made in Africa. Statistics show for example that there have been remarkable improvements in girl student enrollments in places like Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia5. This is definitely a feather in our cap and such areas may serve as boosters to face the remaining dark spots.

All these imply that we might be closer than ever to solving our problems, and all that may be left will be a few giant pushes forward.

This is where technology comes into the picture. It is the one thing that seems to know no barriers, catches on easily and has the power to transform even the most remotely inaccessible locations on earth to budding business towns. It is ubiquitous. Its innovations accelerate by the month. As a result, it is the most probable tool to achieve anything meaningful.

In the early 90’s, scholars described Africa as being left in a technological apartheid 6. Today however, with increased globalization perhaps a slightly better picture can be painted. Even though Africa is not in the league of the innovators of the most novel initiatives and we may not be making as good use of technologies as we ought to, or as some others are, we would still have something positive to report. For example, in some cases, Africa actually has comparable human and hardware resources. Therefore, “apartheid” would no longer be a precise definition of the situation as it stands.

As stated earlier in this paper, technology alone will not solve our problems. But with very serious considerations using active participation, a comprehensive and well though out scheme that incorporates technology will be a very viable solution.

However taking a look at all the attempts made so far and their attendant challenges and effects if any, one may say confidently that will all the proper accompanying compliments, technology will made very significant gains in spurring the development agenda on.

CHAPTER 3:

HOW IS TECHNOLOGY BEING USED TO SOLVE PROBLEMS?

Across many countries around the world, people have made serious strides at utilizing technological knowledge to solve all manner of problems. Many issues have arisen out of such attempts, and below are very brief summaries of some of those places where practical scientific knowledge has been utilized for the growth of the community. 

3.1 ELECTIONS  

In Africa’s recent governance history, elections have always been a challenge. It is hard to find a totally free and fair voting exercise, whilst contested elections, unfair processes, non transparent irregularities and simple ineffectiveness are commonplace. With a background of poverty, it is not too difficult to understand why the stakes are so high in African politics and why power is very lucrative in this part of the world. This not withstanding however, there is a good number of unrests that could have been avoided if any election is proven to be fair, free and transparent to an appreciable degree.

Attaining this ideal degree has proved difficult for reasons of the complex interplay of some factors including, a government founded electoral commission, a winner takes all setting, and no motivation to commit to the right virtues. Knowing that power is so lucrative when you come from this winner takes all setting, it is really hard to let go of control of the electoral process. This is one motivation for the dishonourable acts that unfortunately we see quite often.

Because elections are highly involving and they require elaborate programs that span a series of locations (from a voter’s home to the polling station, the collation center, the electoral commission headquarters, the public domain and back to the voter’s home), It follows that unless you are trying to make public exhibition of your nefarious activity, you would need to be tactical to be successful at such dishonorable acts. The tactics employed may vary but they invariably entail series of acts that are designed to prevent information from getting into the public domain. So that for example, figures could be changed anytime so long as the original and authentic ones do not get into the hands of the public.

If democratic leadership were genuinely understood, there will be no attempt at election rigging. But since we are currently not in that ideal stage, election monitoring is one tool we can exploit to at least cut the ability for cheating.

Mobile phone technology is being used in election monitoring in some African countries under a new system of election monitoring called “parallel reporting”. Parallel reporting is simply an approach to election monitoring whereby independent observers spread news of the votes counted at the basic level, which is the polling station. The figures are then relayed to an independent center where they are collated and cross checked with official figures announced by the electoral commission.

One advantage of this scheme is seen that it will make it increasingly difficult for an electoral commission to attempt to fraudulently sway the results in the favour of any of the contesting parties. The spreading or relaying of the results figures are done largely with mobile phones. Senegal is an example of a country where this project has been successful.

3.2 HEALTHCARE

The statistics obtained from healthcare research are interesting. Figures show that a large number of the world’s HIVAIDS afflicted people live in Africa. At the same time, one of the growing markets for consumer electronics such as mobile devices, handheld PC etc may be found here in Africa. This represents a population overlap, and it is only prudent that some amount of research has been directed towards attempting to find ways to incorporating technology in the treatment of the numerous diseases on the face of the continent7.

Tuberculosis (TB) has long been known to be one of the deadliest diseases known to man. Apart from the threat that this highly infectious bacterial disease presents to human life, it also enjoys some additional notoriety for lowering the sufferer’s immune system to make it easy for other diseases, which may have various degrees of harmfulness, to attack the sufferer.

As if that were not enough, TB has a deadly habit of mutating at the least case of drug non adherence. Therefore any TB caregiver knows that a patient who demonstrates non compliance with drug rules is clearly not interested in getting healed. As a result of this, over the years, ways to enforce religious adherence of medication have been tried but success has largely eluded caregivers.

In South Africa, there is a very laudable project, the SimPill’s award-winning Adherence System project, which uses a real-time management system to increase adherence to medications prescribed to treat chronic illnesses – particularly tuberculosis, which is a significant cause of death of people living with HIV.

3.3 SOCIAL ISSUES

Serious projects that utilize technology to address social issues have been implemented in South Africa. One such idea named Fahamu’s Umn Yango (meaning ‘doorway’ in isiZulu) has been implemented to curb domestic violence by equipping people with cell phones as tools to monitor and report abuse. Under this scheme, victims use cell phones to call a predefined and popular number and give details of the abuse.

The fear of being victimized has always made it difficult for victims, witnesses or relatives to step up and lodge complaints to the relevant authorities. There are examples of places where people had reported abuses and had been picked upon by the abuser. We have had friends of a victim reporting an abuse of their friend only to go home to be abused themselves by their spouses as punishment for “poking their noses in other people’s business”. These good citizens were made to pay the price for exposing a wrong thing.

This fear has been totally eliminated under this project because of the provision of anonymity, the telephone call could be made in secret, and even the details of the reporter are not always required. This is a sharp contrast to the situation in the past where victims, neighbours, or witnesses were required to walk into a police station to make a formal report.

Apart from successes chalked in the number of reports that are received, there has also been a reduction in the numbers of abuse cases. This may be partly due to the deterring feeling among would-be abusers that, any passerby holding a mobile phone might just make sure they get a visit from a police detective for spouse battering.

3.4 ANIMAL FARMING

Technology has also been put to good use in farming.

Farmers who rear cattle in small herds, over time, develop a personal relationship with the animals, the farmer knows all of them and can notice a missing animal or a sick one with just a glance. However, because it takes months of careful observation of the behaviour of every cow to know every animal well enough to take note when there is an infection or when an animal does not ruminate properly, this task would be ineffective if it were performed by a human shepherd with a large herd.

To remedy this situation, the technology of vocal tags has been developed in Europe. This project employs a tag, which is a belt fitted with sensors and worn around each animal’s neck. These sensors monitor several indicators such as the animal’s rate of rumination, voice clarity, digestion and breathing and send the data collected to a central computer.

Over time the computer knows what is normal for every cow and will notify the shepherd when something goes wrong with a cow.

The advantage of this project is that a farmer can take quick and specific action like giving treatment to the particular animal involved. This removes the need to give general treatments to the whole herd, which is both time and money wasting.

These are some of the ways that technology is being used towards increased development.

CHAPTER 4

WHAT LESSONS HAVE BEEN LEARNT?

No matter how promising an idea or project sounds, there are bound to be problems encountered in the deployment of the project. In achieving the above projects, following are some of the problems one is likely to be faced with:

In the election monitoring program, misinformation has been identified to be one of the problems starring the program in the face. It is true that when all the information is not localized in the hands of government, then a lot more transparency will be achieved, but it is also true that mass misinformation remains an unpleasant possibility.

Another problem could arise when there is a situation where people do not necessarily trust the degree of independence of the so called independent observers. It may lead to a problem where parties could cast a slur on the reputation of the observers so as to use the resulting mistrust to set the stage for a possible rejection of the results.

Overall this is a laudable idea and if a means of verification were added, the figures would mean much more to a lot of people.

Whilst celebrating the successes chalked, it is important to note that a number of other factors needed to progress before a state could move towards a more democratic model of governance. According to African political expert, Sheldon Gellar, these changes include: strengthening independent media, growing and ensuring freedom of civil society, decentralizing power, ceding more control to local governments, empowering women and improving judicial systems to ensure independence and power to punish.

Governance is one area that is set to reap some benefits of this phenomenon when used judiciously, unilateral rule and arbitrary action may be reduced towards a more participatory approach to leadership in Ghana

Technology could help achieve those goals to some extent, as communication was the key to overcoming oppression.

In some of the cases, such as the election monitoring or domestic violence reporting, the internet could be used to provide communities with means to communicate, to organize and obtain good information which is not controlled by the government. However, this is not practical in Africa since only a tiny percentage of Africans have affordable access to internet.

In the healthcare project, basic mismanagement has been identified as one of the reasons why many projects seem to skid to halt after being piloted. Needed funds are not always available to those who need them.

Another problem observed was that the people who will be using the project are not always consulted in the designing and planning of the ideas, so there is a lack of communication between beneficiaries, health professionals, technologists, and managers.

Another problem was the theft of cell phones. Although cell phones are a relatively low-cost technology, they still hold considerable value in poverty-stricken areas, and are commonly stolen. And, such theft is likely to rise as these devices become more and more complex. However this is quite debatable since some analysts argue that losing a cell phone to a thief is less of a financial loss than losing a more costly machine.

In the domestic violence project one stumbling block was the communication gap between the various parties involved in the system. Feedback was largely missing and people could not tell whether their input was useful – or received, and in some cases, police officers who receive messages reporting violence against women may not be prepared to respond.

Another problem was the unfortunate situation where some unscrupulous people made the work more difficult for the authorities by raising false alarms. This could be addressed by education and the incorporation of punitive measures.

However to use effective punitive measures, even more advanced technology will be required, for example to pinpoint a particular cell phone subscriber, and take action against them like blocking their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Cards etc.

And the usual problem of financing in many projects is ever present as well, and it is the more predominant one in the animal rearing project.

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

Granted, there are challenges that exist in using technology to achieve development goals, but such efforts still hold great potential and the costs of any obstacle will not stand in comparison to the threat of underdevelopment and poverty. So we can only strive to work harder at such solutions.

Our development attempts and efforts should think more seriously about sustainability and scalability. One important consideration in this direction is the affordability of the programmes we plan and develop. The more affordable options have a higher chance of success, so the fact that most of the development projects do not require any extraordinarily complex or new gadgets is indeed pleasant to note.

Also throughout the creation and deploying of any project, enough consultation should be carried out to ensure that there is a general buy-in into the idea from the creators to the beneficiaries. This will make an idea command a common sense of ownership.

The quality of the management should also be improved and measures should be put in place to ensure the right things are done.

Identifying the problem is half the solution. We already now have greater awareness and we have made some attempts at solving them. Putting our acts together to draw the lessons and re-strategizing with a new approach -technology, is definitely the way to go. I am confident of the viability of this new approach.

CITED REFERENCES

1 Steere M. Cell phones promise fairer elections in Africa. Cable News Network [Online]2009. Available from http://edition.cnn.com/europe. Accessed 2009 Feb 6.

2 Wikipedia. Technology.Wikipedia.org[online]2009.

Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology. Assesed 2009 March 27

3 Macha N. Will Technology solve Africa’s problems?. Global Voices Online[Online]2009. Available from http://globalvoicesonline.com/ Accessed 2009 Feb 6.

4 Finnis A.J. Learning in the Information Age.Twinisles[Online]2009.

Available from http://dev.twinisles.com/research/learninfoage.htm. Accessed 2009 March 27

5 Kitetu, C. Gender in Education: An overview of developing trends in Africa.

Available from www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/groups/crile/docs/crile54kitetu.pdf. Accessed 2009 March 27

6 Castells M. Information Technology Globalization and Social Development.[Abstract]. In UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 114.September 1999.p11.

7 Walvaren K. Did you say cell phones for development? Association for Progressive Communications.[Online]2007.Available from http://www.acp.org/en/home. Accessed 2009 Feb 6.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/technology-and-community-development-847536.html

About the Author

You’ll find in the Acer Aspire 5741 a basic but attractive laptop. Acer has managed to bundle a decent array of utilities with the Acer Aspire 5741. For starters, there is a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office, which gives you full access to it range of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools Then you’ll find a trial version of McAfee Internet Security, so you’ll be able to go online fuss free for the first 90 days. Interestingly, Acer has also bundled a trial copy of Norton Online Backup with the Acer Aspire 5741, which allows you to backup files from up to five laptops, should you happen to have a busy laptop household. For the more routine backups, you’ll find the Acer Aspire 5741 has Acer’s own Acer eRecovery Management software, which prompts you to make an Image disc of your Windows installation when first you boot up your new machine. It’ll also handle incremental backups, should you set up the scheduler. A new utility to the Acer line-up is the Acer Updater tool, which keeps the drivers, BIOS and firmware of the Acer Aspire 5741 up-to-date. Being a new device there were no updates available when we were using the machine but we can see it being rather handy over the life of the laptop, as long as Acer continue to support it with plenty of updates. Verdict The Acer Aspire 5741 comes with a wide array of software to get you up and running, as well as a range of key Acer utilities. Using them we were able to make full use of the machine, as they certainly help take the strain out of setting up and maintaining the health of the Acer Aspire 5741.

Lately the Samsung company is giving us an array of choices in touch screen genre. The newest Samsung S5560 Marvel is one among the lot. This is a competitive touch phone of recent time and this adequate gadget has got everything that a high-end mobile phone should carry.

Appearance

The Samsung S5560 Marvel, as mentioned earlier has been devised with a 3 inches TFT resistive touch screen that can reflect 262k colors at 240 x 400 pixels resolution. Users will get TouchWiz User Interface on the display while the accelerometer sensor will let you enjoy the display in both horizontal or vertical positions. The gadget comes in unbelievable lightweight that is of 95.3 grams only and its physical dimensions are 107.5 x 52 x 13.2 mm. The casing of the phone is of black color.

Gleaming Multimedia

The new Samsung S5560 Marvel is a perfect entertainer so it is obvious that it will carry a 5 mega pixel camera. The given snapper will let you enjoy perfect results each time as it can click images of up to 2592 x 1944 pixels and you can record videos of VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) at 30 frames per second. The camera will be assisted through Auto Focus and LED Flash while you’ll also find functionalities like Geo-tagging, Face, Smile and Blink Detection on it. MP4, H.263, H.264, WMV video files get easy support on its video player. Apart from all those high-class imaging features, the gadget also sports a music player with an specialty known as music storage. The player can give playback to MP3, WAV, eAAC+, WMA music files.

Share Your Work

The Samsung S5560 Marvel is also capable of sharing your work through few of its business features. You’ll get messaging services like SMS, MMS and Email on it while you can visit any website according to your choice through the handset by using its WAP 2.0/xHTML and HTML web browsers. Apart from that, it has got a well maintained organizer as well that carries functionalities like Calendar, Clock, Alarm Clock, Calculator etc. Users can also enjoy high-speed data sharing and connectivity through WLAN Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, Micro USB, GPRS and EDGE systems.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/cell-phones-articles/samsung-s5560-marvel-a-meek-tool-2211982.html

About the Author

Blackberry 8520, Samsung B5310, Blackberry 9000 are the popular offers and these mobile phone contracts are available on Online Mobile Phone Shop UK.

Sony Ericsson Aino is an stylish phone that comes with a beautiful casing of Obsidian black color that makes it even more stylish and provides a kind of sophistication to it. The Sony Ericsson Aino Black is a sliding tool that carries a 3 inches TFT screen with limited touch screen abilities accessible for media features only. The screen sports 16 million colors at 432 x 240 pixels resolution. This solid phone weighs 134 grams including the battery and its compact casing measures 10.4cm tall, 5cm wide & 1.55cm deep.

Camera of the Sony Ericsson Aino Black is one of the best cameras we have had till date. This 8.1 mega pixel camera allows users to click amazing shots because of the features like digital zoom, auto focus, red eye reduction, face detection, image stabilization, flash and BestPic. It clicks still images of 3264 x 2448 pixels resolution and shoots videos of 30fps. Video Stabilizer, Video Streaming, Video Blogging etc. are special video features and the video player can play number of video files. The main camera can be used for video calling as well.

The main aim of the company is to make the Sony Ericsson Aino Black an all in one tool so the given music player is also an awesome one that carries Album Art, TrackID, MegaBass, PlayNow, SensMe, Clear Bass, Clear Stereo, Shake Control, Stereo Speakers, Bluetooth Stereo with A2DP etc. And MP3, AAC, MP4 files can be played on it.

The Sony Ericsson Aino Black is an awesome tool for game lovers as it comes with a remote play for Playstation3. This handset is also YouTube and Facebook compatible. The standard Li-Po 1000 mAh battery is there to let you enjoy 13 hours of GSM & 4.5 hours of 3G talk time or 380 hours of GSM & 367 hours of 3G stand-by time. Built-in memory is of 55MB while the MicroSD card slot allows up to 32GB and an 8GB card is already there in the package.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/cell-phones-articles/sony-ericsson-aino-black-the-coolest-of-all-2211996.html

About the Author

Samsung B7330, HTC Snap, Nokia X6 Blue are the popular offers and these mobile phone contracts are available on Online Mobile Phone Shop UK.

Thanks to an emphasis on type, a preoccupation with intuitive functions and smart, well-designed interfaces, the Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro are a common sight these days. They still account for only a modest percentage of all laptops sold but are hugely popular among those people in the creative fields. Such beauty does not arrive for free of charge, nevertheless, and consumers will spend somewhat of a premium for these gorgeous notebooks. But as those people who own them will tell you, that it is a little price to spend for peace of mind and pleasurable computing. 

Apple MacBook Air

Apple’s ultra-portable thin-and-light model may be the MacBook Air. Less than an inch thick (and as thin as 0.16 inches at its skinniest point) and weighing in at just 3 pounds, this sleek 13-inch machine is as near as Apple arrives to making a true netbook. To accomplish such a sexy design, Apple eliminates a disk drive and includes just three ports — USB 2.0, audio out, along with a Mini DV jack for connection to an external display. $1,499 buys a 1.86 GHz model with 2 GB RAM and also a 120 GB challenging drive; $1,799 for 2.13 GHz and also a 128 GB solid state drive. This product is not without its issues: it is obviously incredibly fragile, and it is been known to operate extremely, extremely hot, generating it tough to utilize as an actual “lap” top. The MacBook Air appeals to a niche audience of on-the-go, image-conscious writers, for certain.

Apple MacBook

 If you’re searching for something much more modest, try the MacBook. This 4.7 pound notebook arrives with a 13-inch LED-backlit display (bright, yet energy efficient) in a polycarbonate unibody package. Just because it is smaller doesn’t mean that that it is lacking inside power department, as it is equipped having a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 250 GB challenging drive, including a built-in 7-hour battery. It also functions a built-in webcam for simple self-portraits and web video. This may be the laptop for individuals who want the Apple design and reliability, but don’t need all the energy in the MacBook Pro.

Apple iPad

We consider it’s pretty rad for what it’s. It is as well underpowered to be a real laptop like the MacBook (and lacks the keyboard to even be a netbook), and it’s just as well large to be a handheld, on-the-go device like an iPod Touch. But we tend to agree with Steve Jobs and the rest with the Cupertino Crew that it fills a significant gap between those people two devices due to the fact it can handle any kind of media (fairly much) and make that media accessible anywhere. We break it down after the jump:

It is a flawed product for sure–no camera, no Flash as we pointed out, no multitasking–but it looks like the greatest tablet anyone has made to date. iPad version two will be a monster, and at the very least, the iPad will encourage competition not just for much better tablets, but because it is an “unlocked” device, better 3G infrastructure and lower 3G prices. Then we all win, Apple lovers and haters alike.

But think of all the persons that purchase a MacBook mainly because they just want a sexy (and reliable and effortless to make use of) Apple product. People persons don’t even arrive near to reaching that machine’s capabilities. They email, surf the web, do their social networking mumbos jumbos, watch several videos and listen to some music. You can do that having a netbook (most of it, anyway) however they happily drop $1,000 on an Apple merchandise. The iPad is developed for people people. It is much more portable, even sleeker, and expenses half as much for the cheapest product. All their old iPhone apps run on this thing too.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yasin Resif writes articles about different things, including Notebook. For more information about works of Yasin Resif visit this Notebook webpage.

Recently European authorities asked Google to explain its search algorithms after complaints from competitors (Microsoft, Yahoo) ”Microsoft argued  that leading firms should not be punished for their success.  A Google representative declined to comment on Microsoft’s post. Recent statements from both sides make clear that the two most diametrically opposed companies in the tech industry are Microsoft and Google. The two titans are increasingly locked in a struggle to define the next generation of computing.

Microsoft, has two franchises to defend against Google’s moves into operating system and office productivity software.

And Google focuses its power,with the majority of its resources financed by its search dominance: exactly where Microsoft is aiming with Bing and the Yahoo partnership.

The U.S. Department of Justice was prepared to block a Google-Yahoo search partnership designed to fend off Microsoft in 2008, and has objected to Google’s settlement with publishers and authors that is also opposed by the Open Book Alliance.

Ultimately what’s important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive,” Heiner wrote. As part of Microsoft’s meetings with the DOJ over its recently approved search deal with Yahoo, it acknowledged that the conversation turned to Google on several occasions.

Microsoft has advanced arguments against Google in the past through a variety of consulting firms and lobbyists, but has very rarely fired such direct and public shots against the company.

“Both search and online advertising are increasingly controlled by a single firm, Google,” Heiner wrote. “That can be a problem because Google’s business is helped along by significant network effects (just like the PC operating system business).

Search engine algorithms ‘learn’ by observing how users interact with search results. Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google.” Google has in the past rejected this argument–the company’s chief economist Hal Varian went so far as to call it “bogus” last August–in saying that smaller competitors who want to improve their search algorithms can conduct wider testing on the samples they already have.

Microsoft ha focused its push against Google, arguing that its sheer scale discourages competitors from believing they can match Google’s mass of data.

That’s why you need to protect yourself. These can be done in a number of very simple steps. This article will get you started but you should always try to be smart when your surfing the net!

Step 1: Anti-Virus Scanner

Whether you’re connecting to the internet or not, you need an Anti-Virus scanner. Your computer can become infected with “viruses”. These are little files or codes that have been written to ruin your computer! That’s why they must be stopped!

There are many programs out there that can help, but it’s best to trust only the mainstream programs as these are used widely and updated regularly.

Recommendations:
AVG Anti-Virus Free
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Avast antivirus
http://www.avast.com/

Step 2: Firewall

Ok so your thinking what is a “firewall” sounds scary right? Well it’s not really. It is again another line of defence against the number of ways your computer can be attacked. In simple terms it blocks other computers and programs from connecting to you and playing with your stuff. Think of it as an internet wall of fire, where you allow what can pass through.

Software – Again there are many programs available to protect you, Recent Microsoft Windows machines come with Windows Firewall, which can be described as basic at best. We do recommend you go for mainstream again.

Hardware – A firewall can also be included as part of your hardware, like an internet router “that’s the box that sits between your pc and the internet line”. This is the best and recommended way to have a firewall. As it blocks intruders before it gets to your pc.

Recommendations:
Zone Alarm
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

Step 3: Be AWARE!!

Simply put watch what you download and accept to save to your PC, sometimes people can send you files in e-mails. They look ok but when you run them they will install something onto your PC and leave you upset and distraught. Always scan something that has been downloaded before opening it and never open/run programs that have been sent in an e-mail from unknown sources.
Step 4: Go for it

That’s pretty much it to get you going. If you think something doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t. Hopefully this will get you going to start with, wait till you find out about spy ware and Trojan’s!! Good Luck and Safe Surfing

Author Bio
Nam
www.LionBlade.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

However, within the Open Source Code there are lots of softwares to choose from, and it´s up to the system analyst/programmer to pick the ones that best suit the project goals.

In our case, we picked Linux as our operating system. However we faced a big question: Which Linux distribution ? There are dozens of linux distributions, each one with specific advantages, sometimes with or without paid services.

We chose linux Slackware because we thought that it would suit better our needs, in terms of stability and reliability. Slackware is a conservative distribution, meaning that it only offers in its distribution package kernel versions and third party libraries, once it´s been proved to be stable and reliable. As a result, Slackware is one the most stable Linux operating system on the market. If the user wishes the most recent Linux kernel and libraries, we recommend to look for a different distribution.

Another reason for us picking Slackware, was because of its text interface, which at the beginning may become a bit difficult, in the long run however it offers a better understanding of the Linux environment. This way most of Slackware configurations are done thru text scripts.

Once it was set the operating system, we picked Apache as our web server. Apache is one of the most popular web server in the internet. For server programming language, we chose PHP. Also, a very popular programming language. Our experience with Apache/PHP proves that this setup is very reliable, working extremely well in our production environment. For workstation programming language, we chose javascript, which besides of having a simple syntax, it offers lots of resources.

Apache web server is really a complete web server. Also, it can become very complex with many configuration setups.

For our database, we picked Postgresql. This database has been made available to the public for more than 15 years, and besides of being well debugged, it offers so many resources that it has become one of the best database options from Open Source Code softwares. Extremely reliable, Postgresql has reported cases where there have been databases in production with over 4 terabytes. Besides all of that, Postresql is not the most popular Open Source Code database. A matter of marketing ? Probably.

As for the programming language PHP, we had to use an object oriented application structure. There are many PHP application structures being offered with Open Source Code license. Object oriented application is very important, because it makes programming very easy and scalable up to the point where the system may grow without many problems. Also, it helps to keep PHP code separated from HTML, with the help of some specific libraries, such as Smarty. We make use of Smarty library and we believe that it is a very important resource, which can even make web pages faster thru the use of its cache functions.

Also a very important set of libraries worth mentioning for PHP systems, is the PEAR libraries. In PEAR web site, among the many libraries being offered, there are the database interface DB and the MAIL_QUEUE, which sends emails thru the use of database.

As we came to the end of our project, we had to use some sort of real time database replication. For that we chose the DRBD and Heartbeat libraries. The use of database replication is very important and should not be postponed. Just after 3 months our system got into production, our server hard disk became bad. Thru the use of DRBD/Heartbeat we were able to put the system back into production within seconds, without loosing any data. DRBD/Heartbeat replication is done thru the use of a lan network between the server and slave nodes.

Our project also makes use of ImageMagick (enlarge and reduce images), Iptables (firewall), Tsearch2(text search in portgresql) and Mon (linux monitoring tasks).

Also a very important library worth mentioning is the pseudo APC compiler for PHP. Speed is always a critical factor for internet sites.

Our web site is already in production and based upon our experience we can say that the Open Source Code softwares we picked, proved to be extremely reliable and stable. Open Source Code softwares can certainly be an excellent option for developing web sites.

Author Bio
Roberto Sedycias – IT Consultant
This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept.
This article can also be accessed in portuguese language from the News Article section of page PoloMercantilRoberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for polomercantil.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

So, what’s going on? The theory goes that the new MacBook Air–which, in the past, has used a special power-frugal version of a standard Intel processor–has been delayed due to an Intel chip shipment snafu.

It’s an intriguing rumor–except that power-efficient versions of new Intel processors always ship later than standard models. And this would be the case even if Apple were to get special expedited orders of these chips from Intel. (That’s not to mention the fact that there is no hard MacBook Air launch date to base a “delay” on–which I will address below).

So, let’s be clear: all laptops using power-sipping versions of Intel processors always ship later than laptops with standard-power versions. Erik Reid, Intel’s director of marketing for its Mobile Products Group, told me at the recent Consumer Electronics Show that this is still the case for the new Core i series of chips, including the new mobile Core i5. (However, Reid and other Intel folks at CES did say that low-power mobile Core i chips will ship a bit sooner than has been traditionally the case with this class of Intel processor.)

Of course, it goes without saying that nobody but Apple knows what will ultimately happen to the MacBook Air. Or if Apple is going to use the Core i5 processor in a new version of the MacBook Air–or, even if Apple does use the Core i5, how it may choose to implement the processor, i.e., with or without Intel graphics.

That said, we do know this about Intel’s new low-voltage specifications, particularly for the low-voltage i5. (Low-voltage Intel processors, by the way, are typically referred to as ultra-low-voltage or “ULV.”) To date, Intel’s ULV chips were rated typically at 10 watts–which is less than a third of the 35-watt rating of standard Intel mobile processors. But Intel is rejiggering this method of rating power efficiency a bit to account for the new “Arrandale” chip design that packages the graphics silicon together with the main Intel processor, according to Reid.

So a Core i chip rated at, let’s say, 18 watts will now be considered a ULV processor. Again, this is done to account for the additional power load of the graphics circuits that, before, were in a separate chip package called the chipset.

Intel processor facts aside, what does all of this say about the nonstop, round-the-clock Apple rumor factory? Because Apple rumors are so prolific, it’s not a stretch to say that occasionally spurious connections are made between Apple and some industry trend or event. In this case, it seems that an established Intel tradition of staggering processor rollouts has been misinterpreted as a delay.

Of course, everyone in the media (including me) these days is guilty of trading on Mac rumors, which is often an exercise in overstimulated imagination rather than fact checking. So, rumors aside, let’s just say that I hope Apple really is updating the MacBook Air, considering–as I said in a previous post–the fact that the Air has not seen a substantive redesign since it was introduced two years ago, almost to the day.

Originally posted at Nanotech – The Circuits Blog