Blogging addicts are always changing themes for their blogs. It’s good that for me I am using a WordPress blog platform. It’s easier for me to change the themes and there are lots of available themes for free. Take note though that free web hosting sites that provide WordPress blog platform like wordpress.com doesn’t allow File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Free hosting sites only allows a pre-selected theme for users to choose and you could not add any other theme on the list. Having a paid hosting service does not have this limitation; it allows you to do FTP for changing themes, uploading plugins, and others.

Changing the WordPress Themes involves uploading of the theme files to the server. In WordPress the themes are normally located on the “/wp-content/themes/” folder. You could use a SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) software to transfer my WordPress Themes to the server. This is to make sure that no one is messing up with the files uploaded to the server. It’s always better to have a precaution when it comes to security. Never compromise simple things such as file transfers. If you want to have flexibility in your blog, consider a paid hosting and with it you can upload photos, scripts, themes, plugin with secure file transfer ptotocol.

One of the hottest social networking program in Asia is Friendster.  Before the days of MySpace or FaceBook, there was already Friendster and I remember almost all of my friends have an account with it. They invite me to join the Friendster social networking circle. It was so sad that after a while Friendster got stucked with development. There are no new frills the could keep up with the competition like FaceBook or MySpace.

Good news to Friendster users! Right now Friendster have opened up their social networking program to include interoperability with OpenSocial. OpenSocial is by the way a Google Inc.-led plan to create a way of sharing of applications developed for various social networking sites. This initiative could, for instance, encourage developers of media-sharing tools for MySpace that could be adapt to Friendster without building it from scratch.

Friendster is now catching up with the pack. FaceBook is not even yet OpenSocial ready. Cheers to Friendster.

Landscape photos has been my favorite. I personally is a nature lover and likes scenery. Silhouettes during sunset are one of my favorites and whenever I pick a digital camera I like to capture those natural night beauty. Shooting the photos at slow speed with the aide of a tripod. Having a camera capable of taking this kind of photo shots requires understanding of the minute technical capabilities of the equipment.

I always dream of traveling into national parks or mountain summit to get a photograph of some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet. Nikon Digital Cameras are one of those magical gadgets in digital photography that allows you to expand your creativeness. There were many fascinating experiments to be learned to manipulate the images and produce the effects I most desired. This is done almost after the shoot with some computer software.

When it comes to digital camera a Nikon Digital SLR D300 Digital Camera is my dream camera as it is compact, durable, and full of advance features. One could get a professional performance at reasonable price. The quality of image could rival that of most expensive sets from other brands which makes it better from landscape or scenery shots.

Annual computer enthusiast gatherings, sports fest, or special parties calls for a different kind of look. Usually, we design the logo’s and print for the T-shirt using Photoshop CS3 or Corel Draw X4 by ourselves. When we are satisfied with the design as printed full color on the paper; it is only then that we send it to the printing shop. It takes less than a day for finalizing things with the print shop.

In occasions that we lack the time to do all those stuff, getting a pre-printed shirt would also be an alternative. For some parties funny t-shirts would do great, but for some serious gatherings I think getting your own design would be better. If you are looking online for some funny t-shirt supply site www.roadkilltshirts.com is one of those nasty and non-sense shirts for fun.

OpenExpo 2008 Zurich, is a two-day trade show and conference on Open Source Software. This will run on September 24 - 25, 2008. There’s been a growing number of participant from both community presence and prominent vendors in every OpenExpo event. The participant could either attend a business or a technology track for the conference. It’s expected that there will be a broad audience from businesses, individuals, and the public sector alike.

Previous OpenExpo have topics like Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org, OpenMoko or OpenStreetMap as well as business applications like SugarCRM, SQL-Ledger, Typo3 or Apache OFBiz. OpenExpo In Zurich will show case topics like Open Source as a Chance and a Challenge for the Telco Industry or Android - an open source platform (not only) for mobile devices and a lot more.

OpenExpo 2008 Zurich Conference First Day Schedule:

Business Track 1: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
09:30 Keynote: Open Source in Space Bruce Perens, Kiloboot
10:00 Keynote: Mozilla – Between Chaos and Order Tristan Nitot, Mozilla Europe
10:30 Open Source as a Chance and a Challenge for the Telco Industry Florian Baumgartner, Swisscom
11:10 OSS vor der Reifeprüfung Stefan Arn, ICTSwitzerland
11:50 ArchivistaBox – Open Source DMS und ERP out of the Box Urs Pfister, Archivista GmbH
12:30 Das freie ERP-System ADempiere Norbert Wessel, metas consult GmbH
13:10 Open Source @ SAP Claus von Riegen, SAP AG
13:50 Erfahrungen mit Open Source Groupware Martin Gafner, Puzzle ITC
14:30 Der «Mythos» Open Source Software Olaf Laber, Ingres Germany GmbH
15:10 Marketing von Open-Source-Software Sandro Groganz, InitMarketing
15:50 Open Source BI Lösungen: Was heute möglich ist Matthias Wilharm, Trivadis
16:30 Preisverleihung OSS-Award
17:15 Vergünstigte LPI-Prüfungen Anmeldung auf lpievent.lpi-german.de
18:00 Social Event Conference Chill Out mit DJ & Lightning Talks
Technology Track 1: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
10:30 Niemand hat Embedded Linux wirklich verstanden Harald Welte, gpl-violations.org
11:10 Debian Diversity Showcase Enrico Zini, Debian
11:50 Community Architecture for Fun and Profit Max Spevack, Red Hat/Fedora Project
12:30 Verteilte Versionskontrolle mit Mercurial Peter Arrenbrecht, codewise.ch
13:10 The (non)organization of PHP Lukas Kahwe Smith, Liip AG
13:50 Die nächste Generation – TYPO3 5.x und FLOW3 Robert Lemke, TYPO3 Association
14:30 KOffice im Produktiveinsatz - Überblick und Einführung Alexandra Leisse, KDE
15:10 Distributed Computing mit Apache Hadoop Bernd Fondermann, brainlounge, Apache Software Foundation
15:50 Semantische Business Intelligence Plattform Interlocks Nicolas Mayencourt, Dreamlab Technologies AG

— source: http://www.openexpo.ch/en/openexpo-2008-zurich/conference/

Switzerland is a beautiful place and if you happen to come from a distant place after attending the conference a tour on the nearby tourist spots of Zurich is highly recommended. You can extend your trip and go for skiing, at the preferred ski areas closer to Geneva. Maybe you could stay on some Geneva Hotels and spend trekking on some real mountains. It would be an opportunity to enjoy the ultimately time touring Switzerland. Some relaxation after the gruelling conference would be a treat for oneself.

Compaq Evo D510 small form factor computer at home needs some upgrades. I have this computer for quite sometime already. This is running a bit slow now. Aside from the shrinking disk space available the memory is not just enough for the application software that I am using. Normally, photos from the digital camera goes to the desktop for reduction of size processing and other photo editing routines.

I am using, Photoshop CS3 Extended latest version. Though the software system requirement list 512Mb as acceptable, but it runs very slow. That’s why a memory upgrade is necessary for my Compaq Evo D510 desktop computer. It’s important to get the right kind of memory for my computer. Incompatibility issues are a source of illusive computer problems in my experience.

A free memory scanner tool like Crucial System Scanner (www.crucial.com) could be used to determine the current memory configuration and the recommend compatible upgrades for your specific system is highly suggested. An assurance of having the right kind of computer memory upgrade bought with the use of a memory configuration scanner would give you a peace of mind. This will save you costly upgrades due to incorrect memory modules.

Computer aided drafting is a rising in demand job. That’s the reason why my friend is considering a computer aided drafting career. Architecture drafting and design is what he likes and he’s eying to have a good job in the some construction firm. Computer aided drafting school will take about 3 - 4 years of study though, but there’s a lot of practice to be done at home. If you are wondering what you might exactly learn at a computer aided drafting school, it could be in line with architectural drafting or mechanical drafting.

Computer laptop is very vital in this kind of study. I was asked of what kind of portable computer aided drafting laptop on sale would be okey? I suggest that you’ll take a look on Fujitsu LifeBook A6120 Notebook. This is a laptop that have a 15.4 inch crystal view WXGA LCD which provides a better view of the drafting while keeping the weight to a minimum. The laptop also comes with 3 GB DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM memory which is more than the usual requirement for Autodesk’s AutoCAD 2009 of 1 GB RAM on a Windows XP SP2 machine. Better Homes and Garden’s Architectural Home Designer software for model making of home and property could be installed here without a glitch.

Notable Standard Fujitsu LifeBook A6120 Notebook Specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5850 (2.16 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
• Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Works and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 60-Day Trial
• 15.4” Crystal View LP WXGA display
• 3 GB DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM memory (2 GB + 1 GB)
• 300 GB S-ATA, 4200 rpm hard drive1 with Shock Sensor protection
• Dual-Layer Multi-Format DVD Writer
• Integrated webcam and digital microphone
• Multinational2 56K3 V.90 modem and Gigabit Ethernet LAN
• Integrated Atheros XSPAN Wireless (Quad-mode 802.11a/b/g and Draft N)
• Integrated Bluetooth
• Five USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394, Memory Stick/SD/xD slot, PC Card slot, ExpressCard slot
• Main battery: Lithium ion (6-cell, 10.8V, 4000 mAh)
• Standard spill-resistant keyboard

I have this stylish Fujitsu LifeBook A6120 Notebook and they are state-of-the-art computing laptop at a very reasonable price of about 899.95$ US from buy.com. The laptop could be well not only for computer aided drafting courses, but for multimedia use also.

Internet have changed the way businesses considers on how to push it’s way to global market. If TV is a good media for reaching viewers on a certain target group the same could be done with the Internet. People would like to use the search engine to look for the products and services they need.

Thus, having a business listed on the top search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, AOL, HotBot, Lycos, and others would have great benefits for exposure of the business to the prospective clients. Optimizing then for certain keywords the company or business website for search engine would have great effects on the business branding.

Website analysis for it’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for branding through search engine optimization (SEO) is important. I could safely say that everyone could do SEO with some IT staff getting some read through on the basics. But, this essential business aspect would be better be done by Advertising Agency that are having an expertise in this area.

There’s usually a thorough analysis of the website that includes evaluation of PageRank (PR), backward links, keyword density, content, site description, strategic linking structure and more. The result of these evaluations are then compared with competing websites of the same business industry which uses similar keywords. The approach would be a holistic one which will list your website on the top of the search engine results. I could observe that SEO business website brings more customer hits that reinforces branding on the Internet.

Blizzard Entertainment are one of the greatest producers of computer game title. I remember the old 386 MHz or 486 MHz computer where me and my friends played Starcraft multi-player on a local area network. We end up going home early in the morning the following day while playing over night with this addicting game of strategy.

Those were the days when we don’t have much Internet connectivity. We are only limited to playing against each other or against a computer. Now a days the options of having a great game playing with another person on the other side of the world is already a reality. Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) is the new trend in PC gaming. Personal computer games like World of Warcraft (WoW) is a hit game title from Blizzard Entertainment.

Playing on a massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game can be a daunting experience for someone who hasn’t done it before. World of Warcraft online games include a choice between player vs. environment (PvE) and player vs. player (PvP) game play. Games like World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King could take hours and hours before one could finally master the basics. Upgrades of the skills of the chosen race like Horde or Alliance would be required to win some battles.

Players who don’t want anymore their WoW characters could sell wow account to other newer players. If you don’t have the time to play much then buying WoW accounts is a short cut. I have learned from my nephew of sites like buyMMOAccounts.com that sells WoW accounts. The transaction are normally quick and easy, as payments are done through paypal without hassle. Buying World Of Warcraft upgraded accounts would be a solution to lack of time in playing.

MySQL database have been growing with each release and more features are being added. As the database adds new features the database expands correspondingly. Before there was no trigger, views, stored procedures in MySQL database, but now it does have these functions which makes it grow in size.

People that are developing applications on the web doesn’t necessarily need all those added features that are built in the likes of Oracle, MSSQL, DB2, or other big shot databases. I would prefer a much leaner MySQL that is optimized for web applications or cloud and net applications without the over head of features that are not needed.

A new open source project called Drizzle, aims to develop a smaller and faster version of MySQL. This would some how remove unnecessary stuff in MySQL which web users consider not useful like stored procedures, triggers, grants, to name a few.

The Drizzle project is not a replacement of the regular MySQL database server as it only targets a limited number of users. Drizzle would be in layman’s terms a lightweight community developed MySQL database which is open for creating features specific to web developers.

Impacts on environment by conventional sources of energy have brought engineers and scientist to have an alternative solution. One of those in the forefront alternative is wind power. Wind power is the fastest growing form of power generation.

Many regions of the US have invested in feasibility studies for wind power plants. The state of California for example is one of the leading states on wind power generation technology.

In the year 2004, wind energy in California produced 4,258 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 1.5 percent of the state’s total electricity. That’s more than enough to light a city the size of San Francisco.

— source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind

Talking of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games extravagant and lavish preparations; China is even catching up with clean wind power technology. It’s even ranked sixth worldwide in terms of the number of wind turbine installations and the country have implemented some Renewable Energy Law.

Generating a sizable amount of electric energy requires a large scale wind farm which consumes a big area. These wind farms are then connected to electrical grids for distribution in the local communities. I could just imagine the way things are done during construction of these facilities. Hoist Manufacturer could really come helpful on these as heavy lift together with big trucks are necessary in transporting the huge components of the wind farm. It requires careful planning and takes years to complete also. On a smaller scale, individual turbines can provide electricity to isolated locations which might not be as big as those in wind farms.

Wind power technology is a promising source of future clean energy. The good news is that the cost of construction is lowering down as the years pass.

There’s lot of bustle right now in the campus where I live. Students from across different countries in Asia, Australia, Europe, US, and more are coming back due for the start of a new semester. Students carrying laptop everywhere from the coffee shop, library, class rooms, cafeteria to almost anywhere would be a common sight. The institute have a student laptop program. This semester’s offered laptop for sale to student is DELL Vostro 1310 which cost around 780$ US. There’s also a subsidy program wherein new students are eligible to avail.

Finding the right computer for use sometimes takes time. One may find it a pain to sift through all the specs and models. There are new trends in laptops like the practical line of mini-laptops which cost around 500$ or less. These computer machines have become smaller at a size similar to that of a legal size paper. The solid-state hard drive is gaining acceptance also as an alternative to the heavier, hotter and power hungry optical hard drives. With that said, physically you want a laptop which is portable to be tag along around the campus, but still packs the power needed to do late night report or thesis writing.

Usually, screen sizes of 15.4-inch wide or 14.1-inch wide are enough for reading and writing purposes. The only downside of it is the weight of the laptop. I personally would go for the smaller screen which has lighter weight. Take note that the smaller the laptop, usually the more expensive it is, and naturally there are less features available. The advent of mini-laptop gives you smaller size with power packed features just enough to do the regular school work at an affordable price.

I find Asus EEE PC 900 as the king of all mini-laptops. This one have the biggest Solid State Drive (SSD) disk of 20Gb and has a 9-inch display screen. The display will have you scrolling around a bit to see a full web page, but the performance is more than what is needed for school. The Asus EEE PC 900 is also relatively cheap at around 650$, but I found one which is on sale from buy.com for only around $415 after rebate. A big savings on the pocket. When it comes to back to school computer, I will go for the Asus EEE PC 900 mini-laptop.

The digital photo technology allows major events to be captured without hassle. A creative way of keeping and presenting photos is through home made photo videos. It’s a great pleasure to show off some photos in a movie form, but creating video slide show needs a bit of patience and skill. I remember some friends requested photos from church activity to be converted into a slide movie and saved on a VCD or DVD for distribution to community members.

Keeping the photo size in its original form will store the quality, but these usually could take more space and will eventually only fit on a DVD. This is especially true when there are like 200 to 300 high quality photos. The process of creating video is pretty simple. It start with selecting the photos you like and arranging them sequentially by file name. It’s also important to standardize the size and orientation of the photos being used.

I normally use a combination of software to create a single video slide movie. The video is first created from the photo available. Once the video is set already a sound track music or any audio desired is added to the video. After everything has been done, the whole thing is transferred to a VCD or DVD disk with the use of a DVD burning software.  Having a software that could do all audio and video manipulation would be better as no need to move the project from one software to another. An all-in-one software could be used like the Blaze Media Pro multimedia software to edit audio and video and burn it into a disk.

I have been having this Motorola L6 Mobile phone and the charger was broken. Buying a new charger is not an option as the phone is already old. The cost of the new charger would be about half of the salvage value of the phone.

A solution is to use USB cable and charge the Motorola L6 mobile phone on a computer. It’s good that Motorola L6 comes with a standard USB cable which is compatible with external hard disk, digital camera, and others. So, it’s easy to get a USB cable. The only thing is the computer does not recognize the mobile phone when the USB cable is used to connect the phone to the computer.

A USB driver specifically designed for Motorola L6 mobile phone should be installed. After installing wait for a while for the computer to detect the mobile phone. Once detected the mobile phone will start to charge it’s battery.

Blogging is for me an important endeavor. I spend time to make my blog current and updated all the time. Nothing could be more frustrating when the blog site is down. I become helpless, being dependent on my web hosting provider. These kind of experience led me to try one hosting to another. In general downtimes of the server are inevitable. Every web hosting have it’s downtime even if they have boasted 99% server uptime.

New comers are easily caught on some marketing hype of unlimited space or unlimited bandwidth. I have heard some hosting are cutting you off when your bandwidth consumption is nearly 2000 GB/month. Downtime problems are also more pronounced on some cheap web hosting that I have tried. There are no customer support to call and help or explain things out. Aside from the monthly fee cost, customer support is one of the important things that I now look on when it comes to web hosting. In my opinion, the easiest and most convenient way to have support is through live chat.

Having a 24/7 running blog is one essential factor in the success of any monetized endeavor. I remember advertisers canceled payment of ads due to some lengthy downtime in the web hosting service. I could not live with that kind of service. That’s one of the reason Why Reliable Web Hosting is important for me. I have a blog investment to protect. Thus, web hosting uptime is an essential factor in my blog.

I feel that having a break from work is necessary. Sometimes too much work makes a person’s life dull. There are times that the usual TV or movie theater viewing is not that exciting anymore. A little bit of adventure by watching some classic theater presentation like 100 Years of Broadway would be something unique. Better go to watch US Open tennis tournament live.

Purchasing tickets online for those kind of events are very convenient. In the US, one prominent supplier of online tickets is StubPass.com. For example you could buy Wicked Tickets to watch and experience the amazing new musical theater program. For me, as I am a tennis sports fanatic. I could buy tennis tickets to witness the US Open Tennis Tournament to watch live top tennis player like Fedderer, Nadal, and others.

Whether you want to go to a sports event, part out on concerts, be simply entertained at the theater, or have some action in Las Vegas, securing some online ticket is a no hassle thing. Every purchase of a ticket could be done through your most convenient time at your own place. No need to have a long cue for buying hot tickets for events. I find it most convenient as the seat arrangement, the date and time, the location and the ticket availability could be easily known.

Disk fragmentation is one of the common cause of slowing down of computer systems running Windows. As programs are installed and uninstalled, data files copied and deleted from the hard disk a “hole” is left on the disk. Meaning the sequential data arrangement on the hard disk are not anymore continuous as a result of the program or file deletion. The consequence of the data being fragmented is it would take time for the hard disk to read and retrieve the data as it will jump from one point to another.

A solution for this is to run a disk defragment program on the hard disk. There are commercial software that can defragment the disk, but disk defragment software is also a built-in Windows program.

How to Defragment a Hard Disk?

• Click Start
• Right click My Computer
• Click Open
• Right click on the Disk Volume to be defragmented
• Click Properties
• Click Tools tab
• Click Defragment Now… button
• Disk Defragmenter window will open
• Click Defragment button to defragment the highlighted disk volume

The impact of a fragmented data on the disk are very obvious in older systems running Pentium 256Mhz with Windows 9x. The performance of newer machines are also affected, but the effect is not very significant due to the faster CPU speeds.

Defragmenting a hard disk will take some time depending on the computer processor speed and the hard disk size. Defragmenting a hard disk around once in a week will be good as it will arrange all data in sequential order on the disk that will result in faster access time for the programs and other files. There are cases that if the disk is so fragmented the programs and other application software crashes.

Disk defragmenting is a way of keeping the computer running smoothly through well arranged bits of information on the disk.

Systems development work involves constant changes to adopt with business changes and needs. Thus, after 5 years of a software life cycle we need to review the system to adopt new requirements. I was assigned together with my colleague to review and redesign our existing system. I need to review things on systems designing and software engineering.

Software development project life cycle is composed of a sequence of activities, which involves requirements analysis, architecture, design, program coding, testing, debugging, integration, deployment, maintenance, and others. Mastering the whole process does not come without challenges. Those activities are performed following a development methodology applying a mix of project management activities for planning, monitoring and controlling the project.

I was eying on taking a refresh course attending some technical seminar related to the work at hand. Learn more about important software engineering activities and typical software project lifecycle. Maybe comprehensive examples will be given along with the theoretical fundamentals. I am hoping also of some hand-outs with typical documents and templates for software development process which includes: software requirements specifications, software design documents, project plans, test plans, to name a few.

I have found a website that could be a good source of learning and it offers free Information Technology and other technical seminars. The site lists the latest seminar topics, electronics seminar topics, computer related topics, engineering projects, and many others in the field of technology. You can visit it too and learn from the interesting topics they have for free.

Cars and other types of vehicle have contributed much to the increasing trouble of global warming. Ordinary people that drives their car are not though keen on this concern. I observe the black smoke churning out of an old truck. There are moves to create a vehicle that is more environmental friendly. This have directions into Fuel Cell powered vehicles. Hybrid vehicles that have improved fuel mileage; but are very expensive as of the moment.

A cheap solution for increasing fuel mileage is through the use of a Performance Chip. The performance chip is the heart of the control the Engine Control Unit (ECU), an electronic system which controls different aspects of an engine’s operation. Most of which are proprietary technologies with registered trade mark. The performance chip is programmable and is able to do engine control , calibration and fault diagnosis of the vehicle.

Particular performance chips are sold expensively; an alternative is to have a customized ECU to meet customer’s unique needs. You could check if your vehicle is compatible for use with a performance chip through www.streetbeatcustoms.com. Some of the benefits of using a performance chip is increasing the fuel mileage efficiency, money savings, reduced carbon emissions and better environment.

I try different software before investing some bucks on it. The best way for me to secure test software are through BitTorrent peer 2 peer sharing. My favorite lightweight, feature rich and high performance Windows BitTorrent Client is uTorrent. Recent stable uTorrent upgrade version is 1.8.

The upgrade version of uTorrent supports Windows Vista operating system. This resource-friendly BitTorrent client is my favorite as it uses less than 6MB of RAM. Furthermore, the executable file is very small at around 220 Kb size.

The admiring thing for uTorrent is it’s being small, while being power packed software. This also supports the Windows Vista localization themes. Importantly is the support for IPv6. I believe that these are some of the good advantages of upgrading to the new version of uTorrent.

My parents lives on a suburban city. Keeping in touch with them is kind of expensive through regular phone lines. They are not really tech savy, but they already have a desktop computer at home. Internet would be good for saving some communication cost. People can chat for free using Yahoo messenger or Chikka text messenger which allows even video chat. Thus, having an Internet connection at home would be good.

In Europe for example, they have a variety of broadband choice from ADSL broadband, cable/fibre optic or by 3G mobile network. I have known of sites like Broadband Expert which provides different broadband services to select with corresponding facility to compare price and do broadband speed test.

Unfortunately, in our locality only ADSL broadband through land line telephone network and the mobile 3G mobile network broadband are available. Getting an Internet access would not be a problem for us. My parents for sure are not heavy Internet user, so I’ve been looking for an inexpensive plan with a modest download limit.

Dial-up service to the ISP is the way it’s done before, but the only thing is you need to dial up to the ISP every time. Another, is you could not use the phone when you’re connected to the Internet. I’ve decided on ADSL broadband would be the best solution as it would not bother them much about technicalities of getting a connection. Also, the cost is a bit at a minimum. I didn’t want to be tied up with great expense.

Actually, my sister got this 3G mobile broadband service as she travels often. A broadband speed test conducted by my sister resulted poor results for 3G broadband. This might be due to the location of our residence which is far from the mobile network tower.

Finally, the ADSL Broadband would be the most practical Internet service for our home.

Viruses are one of the nasty things one needs to deal with in a computer. This is more so on a Windows system which is more targeted and vulnerable by viruses. A neighbor have asked me to reformat and reinstall the whole system due to a recurring virus infection on the computer. Yes, there are viruses that could damage the computer system files, making it unable to boot the system. Thus, it is necessary to use some Antivirus Software to protect your PC from worms, trojans, and other malicious programs.

One important aspect of protecting your computer system is with the use of a firewall. The program is capable of limiting access to your computer when you are exposed to the Internet. That’s why Windows Operating System have a built-in firewall program which could be activated as a part of standard installation. This built-in firewall program have some limitations though. Thus, a special Firewall Software should be installed, if the security level to protect your computer is not met by the built-in firewall of Windows Operating System.

Internet browsers are the most common gateway for inviting worms, spywares, scumware and other unwanted programs. Protecting yourself from these kind of threats while you surf the Internet with a browser is with the use of a AntiSpyware Software. A good practice is to install antispyware program to have additional protection from worm or virus infection.

Aside from installing the best antivirus software, there’s also a need to have data backup as a fallback plan. No antivirus could be capable of handling all the new computer virus threat. Thus, a Data Backup Software for backing up all important data should be used on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

It is important to note that to have the best internet security and virus protection comes not only with the programs being used. No matter what best Antivirus Software, AntiSpyware Software and other Internet Security Software you install; there is no substitute for safe practice in using the Internet. Having safe practice in using your computer while online would save you a lot of trouble from computer viruses slowing down your computer system.

Mobile phone battery performance degrades after a year of use. I have a Motorola L6 which after 4 hours of use the phone is dead already. Worst, it doesn’t charge the battery when charged. So, I bought a new battery hoping that it will solve my problem, but to my dismay the problem is still the same. The problem was not only the battery the charger needs to be replaced too. Thus, I bought a new generic charger. It worked fine for a week, but the only thing is I can only use the phone for like 6 hours after charging the phone for like 4 - 6 hours.

I don’t want to spend a fortune to buy a new original Motorola L6 charger. The solution was to download a USB driver to connect my Motorola phone to a Personal Computer running Windows. I have downloaded the 32-bit version of the driver for Windows XP. After downloading the driver and installing using a standard USB cable I could charge my Motorola L6 for only 1 - 2 hours and I could use it for days. It’s difficult to find the driver and some are selling it.

Free for download Windows Motorola L6 Mobile Phone USB Driver

• Download 32-bit version of Windows 2000, XP or Vista USB Driver
• Download 64-bit version of Windows XP or Vista USB driver

Please take note that I have used this for charging my battery on my Motorola L6 phone. It’s not advisable for using it for data or file transfers which I guess a Motorola Phone Tool software is needed.

Blogs literally litter the Internet and the number adds up each day. Some are active, some are not. Others end up as a waste. This might be due to the wrong notion that people got about blogging. Maybe they need advice on how to make the most out of a blog. There are those that really just blog for bucks which fails to get a following of readers.

So, friends ask me about my blog and how to create one. Before, I need to show them step by step. I have read some nice articles from life123.com about How to Set Up a Blog which is one of the first things that need to be learned. Now at least, I don’t have to explain a lot of things. I only need to share some of the important things missing for starting up a blog. Then learning by yourself continuously is the way to improve on. I am glad and happy that my friends are successful on their blogs. They are already experts in their own way and could even answer anything about blog at a speed of life.

Portable storage drives like the Universal Serial Bus or USB Flash drives are very useful. They are a replacement for the floppy disk that existed long ago. The only difference is this small thumb size device could pack up data from 1Gb and even up to 256Gb. I could not imagine an office without this very useful device around for transferring files such as document, presentation, spreadsheet, photos, music, videos to name a few.

Well as the demand and use for it grows the environmental concern of it’s impact in the long run also mounts. Thus, Hoshino a Hong Kong based company developed one of the first biodegradable USB Flash drive. The USB Flash drive is manufactured based on some polylactide (PLA) material which is a biodegradable, thermoplastic, aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources like corn or sugarcanes. Don’t worry it works just like any other flash drive you have. No problem with disposing; if you don’t find any use of it, just pitch it in the bin. So, how about switching to a more environment friendly biodegradable USB flash drive?

The average person normally uses a mobile phone. The latest generation of mobile phones like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and others allows you to customize every bit of aspect of the phone from start up, shutdown, greeting message, wall papers, screen savers, ring tones, and many more. Having a custom set mobile phone that meets all of your needs and expectations makes you apart from others.

Making your mobile phone experience complete by customizing stuff takes time, especially putting up some new and exciting mobile phone logos and ringtones. Rap and Hip Hop music are some of my likes, so I could put Hip Hop or Rap Ringtones by downloading some popular ring tones on the web. Download the right kind of content for your mobile phone to make your mobile phone experience complete.

Nearly every downloadable content like logo or ringtone is completely compatible for almost all brand of mobile phone. Not only that, you could extend your phones applications with Java phone applications. Start exploring and download dozens of other mobile content for greater mobile phone enjoyment.

Yahoo has released the Zimbra Desktop which is based on the cloud computing concept of allowing people open their e-mail from any computer or mobile device. At first, I thought that Zimbra as a web-based email client would be accessible via a browser and just open a web address, but it’s entirely different. Zimbra comes as a downloadable e-mail client software application much like Thunderbird or Outlook, but actually it’s a browser based application using the power of AJAX technologies.

After installing, the software allowed me to open up my yahoo email and sync it with the mail server. I could then read e-mails even when I am offline. Zimbra offers options for basic word processing, spreadsheet, task management, calendar, contacts and file storage. The look and feel of the whole application is the same as that of the yahoo email interface that I’ve been using all along. This kind of software is really a first step of having Internet services substitute for local applications. Zimbra Desktop e-mail software runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and is available for free download. You can try this promising software.

A common problem with working on the computer for a long time is the tired eyes. What I mean is that eyes are getting red and irritated. This is a result of too much use of computer. I have myself a special eye glass that have some UV protection which is advisable when working on computer display that are cathode ray tube (CRT) type. With LCD monitors the eye irritation would be less.

In my experience, a good practice of 5 minute break every hour would be enough to rest the eyes. Also proper lighting sans glare would be important. If you experience headaches then you should need to see an eye doctor to diagnose your eyes. You could then upload your photo online in EyeBuyDirect.com and try on the different frames that suites you best before having them fitted with a prescription lenses. If you are into fashion then a designer frame like Calvin Klein, Police, Dior, and more could be selected.

Properly prescribe eye glasses can help reduce eye stress. The lenses could be customized to have tints and coatings for maximum eye comfort with various lights. Remember to take care of our eyes from computer strain. It’s the only pair of eyes that we have.

Internet is really growing and to catch up with the demands of web hosting; I could observe that hosting companies are sprouting everywhere. A database is a typical basic requirement for modern dynamic websites that are data driven. I could observe the popularity of open source databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and others are usually the choice, but there are still those who would like to use MS SQL Server. This might be due to the development framework like .NET Framework which is tied up with Microsoft system.

Web hosting providers have this problem of high licensing fees with Microsoft products as a killer. Microsoft hopes to address this problem by coming up with a MS SQL Server 2008 Web Edition that will provide a low cost, large scale highly available web applications or hosting solutions. The database is equipped with an improved PHP SQL Server Driver which enables PHP applications have a scalable and reliable integration with SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 Web Edition comes with a Service Provider Licensing Agreement which is a form of volume licensing, so everyone will be enjoying a much lower fees. If you want more capability solution a SQL Server 2008, Enterprise or Standard Edition should be considered for it also includes features found in SQL Server 2008 Web Edition.

Baking is one of the things that I enjoy doing. Though lately I haven’t got much time to do it. On my busy schedule I could squeeze in some time to bake bread, cookies, pizza, and others. I always wish of getting a bigger oven range for baking in lieu of the 12 inch oven. The rising global warming made me ponder on it.

It makes sense that a small toaster oven uses up lesser time and energy to preheat. Just imagine the consumption of around 600-700 watts of power for a oven toaster while a regular electric oven would eat up around 3,000 watts of power. The toaster oven with toaster that have convection heating feature would be great energy saver as it reduces overall cooking time. It operates at a much lower temperature compared to conventional ovens. Plus, digital controls and adjustable thermostat will give precise control of the settings.

Finally, if only small volume of stuff needs to be cooked then the digital convection energy saving oven toaster I guess it would be the best technology solution.