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Issue 455 - July 04, 2007
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2007
==== 1458Subscribers in 49 Countries ====
Welcome to the 455th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly
of news highlights and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is
your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me
two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!
You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with
any suggestions or comments.
Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php
Contents
Opening Thoughts
Chris is back now and it seems like he had a nice honeymoon. Surprisingly
he didn't take his good camera with him. He did have a couple of smaller cameras
with him, so we may see some pictures later. Since Chris is back, he is back
to providing a weekly Digital Photography Tip.
Matthew just turned 3 and we had a nice family party for him. Andrew turns
5 at the end of the month, and he's having his first birthday party with friends,
so he's very excited. Speaking of Andrew, he finished Junior Kindergarten last
week. We're pretty sure he passed (phew!) :-)
So now Lisa has to find a way to entertain the two boys all summer while she's "great
with child". She's a great mom, so I'm sure she'll have all sorts of great
things to do. They have season passes to Marineland,
so I'm sure they'll go there several times.
I hope everyone had a happy Canada
Day and Independence
Day!
Graham editor@pcin.net and
Chris chris@pcin.net
News Highlights
Curious gadget fans smash, dissect iPhones
It took Apple Inc. more than six months to build the iPhone but curious
gadget fanatics needed only minutes to tear one apart.
Within hours of the first iPhones going on sale Friday, enthusiasts scrambled
to be the first to discover what makes the devices tick, posting photos and
videos of disassembled phones on the Internet.
The information is more than just academic. Apple keeps a tight grip on information
about parts suppliers so "tear downs of its products are closely watched
by investors keen to figure out how to place their bets.
Read the Toronto Star article...
Leave a comment...
Why We Click
Money is the motivation for scam-spam. The motivation for clicking on it
is far less straightforward, and none of us is immune.
"It's not like certain people are going to be nailed by spam all the time.
Or that there are certain motivations that will just [always] trigger people
[who respond] to spam scams. It's really the interplay between personality and
motivation, emotion-all sorts of things," said Dr. James Blascovich, professor
of psychology at UC Santa Barbara and co-director of the university's Research
Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior.
"It's a little more complex, but not much different from the complex interplay
of psychological factors that get people to succumb to any sort of scam." ...
McAfee, of Santa Clara, Calif., throws around figures like these: If half
of the population in the United States (about 150 million people) use e-mail
on a daily basis, and if only half of them (75 million) are gullible, and
only 1 percent (750,000) buy into scam-spam on a given day, and if those
victims were to cough up a mere $20 per scam, the potential market amounts
to $15 million a day, or $105 million per week, or nearly $5.5 billion per
year in just the United States.
Read the eWeek article...
Leave a comment...
NASA missions may Twitter from the moon
NASA astronauts "twittering" from the moon?
It's not such a far-fetched idea, considering the space agency's current
push to partner with Web 2.0 companies like Twitter and save itself from
turning into a dinosaur in the Internet age. Some executives at the struggling
NASA believe that if the agency can adopt Web technologies like Twitter
- a social network for broadcasting thoughts online or via text message
- then kids and the general public will be more connected to space exploration
and inspired to learn about science.
"How can NASA become hip?" NASA CoLab Project Manager Robert Schingler
asked here Tuesday at NASA's Ames Research Center. "For me, it's allowing
other individuals (and companies) to participate in the program."
Read the USA Today article...
Leave a comment...
Return to the top
Digital Photography
Tip of the Week
Strobist.com - Lighting information for everyone - Digital Photography
Tip of the Week
I would like to thank everyone for their patience over the past little while
when I was getting married. I know that the tips had stopped, but hopefully
the reviews Graham included in the newsletter were beneficial. I had very little
activity on my own website in
that time as well and have resumed regular postings their as well.
In past tips I have spoken about the quality of light and how the relative
size of your light source affects the quality of light. I have also talked
about using on camera flashes.
There is another website that I follow very closely that offers a wealth of
information on lighting, and more specifically, lighting with small strobes
or external on camera flashes. David Hobby is the creator of Strobist and
is also a professional photographer. He has more than 600 articles and postings
on his website all about lighting your subject with small, inexpensive off
camera flash units. Last summer he ran a series called Lighting 101: Lighting
Boot Camp and is currently running Lighting 102. His work and examples can
even help photographers with point and shoot cameras and just a few controls
on their cameras.
He makes this stuff easy.
I encourage everyone to visit his site, read through his article, read Lighting
101 and follow Lighting 102. Do the exercises. They will make you a better
photographer.
Until next time, happy shooting.
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PCIN.net Site Update
Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/photoshopEL5_Premiere3.php
ExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.php
Paragon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.php
Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/
Microsoft Digital Image Suite Plus Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/msdimagesuiteplus.php
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Tips and Other Stuff
This blog is G Rated
Mingle2 has a tool that they
say will "rate" your blog, similar to the way movies are rated.
It scans the posts and looks for objectionable words. It obviously isn't
perfect (one of my sites was warned about using the word "dead"),
but it's still kind of a fun tool. You can enter any blog URL (and any URL
for that matter) and determine their "rating".
Leave a comment...
Televison History
I came across this interesting
web site the other day that has a lot of information about the history
of television
One of the greatest 20th century inventions.
Learn about the history of TV-set design, development and marketing.
Once you are inside a major time period, you will find photographs of
television sets from around the world, year-by-year links to important
facts, magazine covers and advertising. See examples of the world's first
television sets, up to and including HDTV models.
They have some great pictures of very old televisions, as well as a lot
of trivia type information.
Leave a comment...
14 Personalized Homepages Compared, Feature by Feature
I've seen this mentioned in a couple of places, but Mashable has an
article that compares 14 different personalized home pages. The homepages
are:
- Netvibes
- Pageflakes
- iGoogle
- MyYahoo
- yourminis
- WebWag
- Schmedley
- Eskobo
- Windows Live
- Favoor
- Gritwire
- Inbox
- Protopage
- It'sAStart
I haven't heard of a bunch of these, but I'll probably check them out now
that I've read a bit about them.
Leave a comment...
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PCIN.net Affiliated
Sites
Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that
we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check
them out from time to time for updates:
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Disclaimer
and Other Stuff
PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of
the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing
and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying
the tips in this newsletter.
- If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to cut
and paste.
- To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit http://PCIN.net/ and
follow the appropriate links.
- The only way to become a subscriber is by asking. You have either filled
out the subscription form or asked me directly.
- If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please email me at editor@pcin.net and
I will add it to the subscriber web pages that I have on my site.
- Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php or
by clicking on the PayPal link below:
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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2007, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author
is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php
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