Jumat, 11 April 2008

Ergonomic Monitor :

Positioning your Ergonomic Monitor to a Perfect height and distance that is comfortable for you with an Ergonomic Monitor arm or lift mechanism. Most of your time is spent looking at the Ergonomics Monitor. Hence, utmost care should be given in choosing and appropriately placing it in your workstation.

rrgonomic computer monitor

Fig: Desktop computer

Suitable positioning of the Ergonomic Monitor would help you reduce exposure to compelling exertions, inept postures, and overhead glare. Possible health issues like extreme exhaustion, eyestrain and related disorders like itching, sty, and power. Variations of the eye lens, and neck and back pain can be avoided on proper selection of the Ergonomic Monitor. The positioning of the Ergonomic Monitor should be in concurrence with the other components like the keyboard, desk, and chair.

While using the Ergonomic Monitors , ensure the following:

  • Ensure that the Ergonomic Monitor is in front of you and at least 20 inches away.
  • Ensure that the top line of the screen of the Ergonomic Monitor is at or below your eye level.
  • Ensure that the Ergonomic Monitor is placed perpendicular to the window.
  • The viewing distance, viewing time, viewing angle, and viewing clarity have to be adjusted to get the best results without affecting your health.


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The first remote deposit solution using a generic document scanner will launch in July, according to its developer Community Bank Systems <bankimage.com>. Without the requirement of buying a $300+ check scanner, remote deposit services will be able to capture a large number of small and micro-businesses.
Scanner

Analysis
We'll reserve judgment on CBS's ePosit solution until we have more details, but this could be an important way to grab more share of your area's small business customers. And it will make a good copy point for personal checking accounts, though most consumers won't want to learn a new system to deposit a couple checks every month. Conversely, if you lag on adopting this new technology, you may find yourself vulnerable.

As a matter of fact, we could envision a long-term branding campaign around better deposit taking, from reduced hold requirements, deposit-item images available via online banking, and the convenience of 24/7 remote deposit of paper checks. Read some of the rants at HomeStreet Bank's <mybankdoesntgetit.com> site and you can see that deposit INconvenience creates some strong feelings (see this rant and this one).

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No matter where you are reading this article, you most likely have a printer nearby. And there's a very good chance that it is an inkjet printer. Since their introduction in the latter half of the 1980s, inkjet printers have grown in popularity and performance while dropping significantly in price.
An inexpensive color inkjet printer made by Hewlett Packard. See more inkjet printer pictures.
Hewlett Packard inkjet printer
Hewlett Packard inkjet printer
An inexpensive color inkjet printer made by Hewlett Packard. See more inkjet printer pictures.

An inkjet printer is any printer that places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create an image. If you ever look at a piece of paper that has come out of an inkjet printer, you know that:

* The dots are extremely small (usually between 50 and 60 microns in diameter), so small that they are tinier than the diameter of a human hair (70 microns)!
* The dots are positioned very precisely, with resolutions of up to 1440x720 dots per inch (dpi).
* The dots can have different colors combined together to create photo-quality images.

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Memperkenalkan mouse SideWinder, produk anyar keluaran Microsoft yang ditujukan sebagai mouse khusus game pada sistem operasi Windows Vista. Produk ini merupakan salah satu usaha Microsoft dalam rencana mereka terjun ke bisnis peralatan komputer.



Microsoft memperkirakan, jumlah pemain game yang menggunakan sistem operasi Windows mencapai kisaran 200 juta. Sementara, teknologi grafik DirectX 10 baru untuk Vista, disebut membuat 10 juta penggemar game beralih ke Vista dari Windows XP. Hal inilah yang melatarbelakangi Microsoft memproduksi SideWinder untuk memfasilitasi penggemar game yang memakai Vista.

"Tingkatkan skill game Anda dengan mouse revolusioner yang didesain dengan performa, kendali dan adaptabilitas yang belum pernah ada sebelumnya. Modifikasi sendiri mouse menurut game yang Anda mainkan. Gunakan layar LCD pertama yang pernah ada di mouse game" demikian Microsoft mendeskripsikan SideWinder.

Spesifikasi teknis mouse ini memang bisa dikatakan mumpuni. SideWinder beresolusi 2000 dpi, memiliki proses image 7080 frame per detik, akselerasi maksimal 20 g, kecepatan maksimal 45 inchi per detik, serta tombol utamanya diperkirakan bisa bertahan sampai 9 juta kali pijatan.

SideWinder adalah mouse pertama dengan fitur layar LCD. Layar itu berguna untuk mengubah pengaturan DPI tanpa mengganggu jalannya permainan. Seperti dikutip detikINET dari Softpedia, SideWinder direncanakan akan tersedia pada bulan Oktober seharga sekitar US$ 80.(detikinet)

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Microsoft To Make First Mac-only Keyboard

//www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/images/microsoft keyboard from pc magazine

Microsoft will be releasing its popular curvy keyboard for the Mac later this year. Due sometime by summer, Microsoft will give Mac users a keyboard with a dedicated key that only the Mac understands. But that key won"t have the commonly found apple on it as Microsoft could not get proper authorization for its use. Instead, a clover will doan the key next to the spacebar for those special Apple functions. Also found on the keyboard will a key for ejecting optical discs such as a CD or DVD.

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On Test - ACTi CAM5230HP

We took delivery of an ACTi CAM5230HP network camera for testing. The ACTi CAM5230HP is a static MPEG-4 real-time streaming day/night camera supporting a host of features, so let’s take a closer look at them:
Installation
The camera is supplied with a 12VDC power supply and a range of appropriate terminal blocks. A simple case of wiring up the terminal block to the power supply and connecting brought the camera to life.
Configuration
When entering the camera for the first time we were confused to see the camera has two areas to input IP details. One area for the LAN and one area for the WAN. After some testing in the office it was found that if you input your details as a LAN IP address you will not be able to see your camera externally through the internet. To configure external access you must configure the camera with a WAN IP address.
Dynamic DNS and UPnP
At this point we like to take a look for some support for NAT configuration and dynamic public IP addressing.

ACTi CAM5230HP

We were worried that we couldn’t find support for Universal Plug N Play (UPnP). UPnP is a networking architecture that will automatically configure compatible networking devices to achieve zero configuration networking. Specifically, network cameras can automatically set their own firewall rules in the router to allow external access. Not having this functionaility may be detrimental to potential customers with little or no networking background.
The camera supports dynamic DNS configuration and comes with a host of different providers to choose from. This is essential for those customers who are have a dynamic public IP address. For more information about the dynamic DNS service please see our blog post: Dynamic DNS, or Do I Really Need a Static IP Address?
Browser Plug-ins
The camera requires an Active-X plug-in to be installed into a web browser to enable the playback of images. We found that there are two unique Active-X plug-ins dependent on the cameras video settings.
Supported Modes
The camera supports the following resolutions:
176×144 pixels
352×288 pixels
720×576 pixels
The ACTi CAM5230HP supports a frame-rate of up to 25fps across all resolutions.
Image Settings
The ACTi CAM5230HP supports a number settings for brightness, saturation, contrast and hue from the main video adjustment page.
It also has enhanced functionality for backlight compensation, auto white balance, auto gain control and flickerless for different application conditions. These however are controlled through physical dip-switches on the camera rather than from the software.
Audio
The camera supports 1-way audio which means that you can listen in to the area the camera is installed.
Events
The camera supports the sending of images to an email account or FTP server based on motion detection, non-motion or external trigger. The options are very limited when setting up events and in the time we spent with the camera we could not get it to send images via email or FTP which was a concern.
Quality
We found the frame-rate of the camera to be exceptional, delivering a full 25fps over our LAN. This of course would be limited by bandwidth when viewed if the Internet.
However, we found it very difficult to obtain a reasonable, sharp image from the camera. We were using a very good lens and found the result to be poor enough not to be able to capture likenesses. There was also a lot of bad colouration in the image which we could not resolve using the image settings.
Maybe if we had more time with the camera we could obtain a better result but ultimately we were not happy with the image quality we gained during the camera’s testing.
Conclusion
The camera is limited by offering only MPEG-4 video through Active-X. It’s also limited by the quality of the image it produces. We tried for a long time to get a decent image from the camera using a high quality lens but we were never able to get an image we were happy with.
By having to plug the camera into their local network via the WAN port, customers/end users will always question which port to use and this will lead to unwanted confusion for them. If they plug the camera into the LAN port then they won’t be able to achieve external access.
Image upload via email or FTP didn’t work for us after spending 30 minutes to an hour configuring it. That is a worry. If we can’t get this to work how will any of our customers?
It’s hard to estimate how many of our customers use UPnP. This networking architecture helps configure customer routers automatically so that their cameras can been accessed externally over the internet. Our thoughts are that most of the time this works for the customer so if they were supplied with a camera which had no UPnP support then this would again generate even more dissatifaction and confusion.
We find it hard to place who this camera is marketed to. We feel if we were to use this camera it would have to be in a professional capacity as the camera is not targeted at general end users, but the image quality contradicts that. In the end we feel that the camera doesn’t offer anything new to the space which can’t be achieved or done better by another brand.

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Minggu, 06 April 2008

Kyocera KR1 Mobile EV-DO Router

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EV-DO Router

EV-DO Speed Test

Back in January I had written about how much I love EV-DO. Well things just got even better. I recently purchased the Kyocera KR1 Mobile Router, which is a 4 port D-Link router that has a slot for EV-DO cards and a USB port for EV-DO phones so you can setup and even share an EV-DO broadband connection through a wireless network or ethernet connection. I ordered it through the fine folks at EVDOinfo.com, who provide excellent up-to-date EV-DO news and info. The unit is fairly compact (the size of a normal 4 port router) and even comes with a vehicle power adapter. This really opens up the possibilities for how this can be used. In fact, imagine its potential with a portable power supply.

The setup was a breeze (standard router configuration wizard) and it worked with my existing Kyocera KPC650 card that uses Verizon’s BroadbandAccess EV-DO network. I had the router configured as an access point with a working wireless network in about 5 minutes. I was also able to setup WPA encryption, with no problems connecting to the network using both Mac and Windows. I did some speed tests from Laughing Squid’s San Francisco headquarters and I’ve been getting around 500-900 Kbps down and 100-120 Kbps up (the max for EV-DO is 2.4 Mbps, which is in fact possible in some areas).

Now my portable broadband network is ready to go. I just show up with it, plug it in and in a minute or so the wireless network is live. That’s all there is to it. All I need is power and Verizon EV-DO coverage. Have an old laptop without a wi-fi card? No problem, just plug it into one of the 4 ethernet ports.

I’m going to bring the EV-DO router up to Gnomedex this week and see if I can get it to work at the conference and maybe do some testing with distance and number of users.

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