What to look for in a laptop?
Battery life
Battery life is an important aspect to consider when buying a laptop for college. The last thing you want is for your laptop to die in the middle of a lecture of when doing important college work that now could be lost.The key is finding a laptop with a good battery life and one which looks aesthetically pleasing at the same time. With my laptop I choose to use the power saver power plan in order to maximize battery life.
Wireless Connection
A wireless connection is essential to any laptop. A laptop without wireless is pointless and there is no point spending more money for a wireless broadband add on, when you can find laptops for cheap with wireless connections in them already.
Price
Definitely essential for us students when considering buying a laptop. The good thing is that these days you can get good laptops for reasonable prices. At the same time I would robably recommend buying a laptop from abroad as almost everywhere is cheaper then Ireland and you get a lot more vale for money.
Size
Back to the age old argument of does size really matter? Well in this case, maybe. You might think you need a laptop with a huge widescreen monitor when your buying it, but you have to ask yourself, is it essential? And remember your going to be the one who has to carry it around.
Memory
Giga bytes, ram etc? I couldn’t begin to try and explain what they are, why you need them and how to get them.But I know that they are important, probably best to ask the sales man about them when your shopping for your laptop. You want to have enough memory to store your work, hold your I tunes and of course play Football Manager.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Technology article #2
Im sure we have all heard of the social networking site Facebook, as most of us could probably be considered to be addicted to it. In fact Id be confident enough to say the majority of people reading this blog are also logged into Facebook as well. Never before has a social networking site been so popular and had such a pull among the masses. Facebook is reportedly more popular than the Superbowl and has even got the pope criticizing how much people use it, not that our current pope is ever short of an opinion on any topic. So why is Facebook so popular and is being on a social networking site so often really that good for our health?
Well I found a very interesting article concerning Facebook and its affect on the mental health of its users. According to recent studies it increases jealousy among its users, particularly when it comes to a person checking up on their partner. It says some people say stalking a partner on Facebook increases jealousy aswell as becoming addictive. The studies show it has an effect on college students relationship aswell but further study need to be carried out to see if it also has a matching effect on more mature adult relationships. Facebook originally set-up to help promote relationships might just be doing the opposite in some cases.
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/7/32721/facebook-fosters-jealousy-says-study.html
There is no doubt in my mind that Facebook is taking over our lives, I already spend too much time on it doing more or less nothing and playing pointless and very basic games, I cant seem to help myself though and as I try to ween myself of it I realize I might aswell be online because everybody else is anyway. One question I have always wanted an answer to is why is Facebook so popular compared to other social networking sites?
According to this article the 24 year old creator facebook wanted to try and re-create the relationships which we have in life, that is why we can join different clubs and groups, send each other presents among many other things. It also allows the user to specifically adjust their privacy settings in order to display different aspects of their personality to different people. As they may not want their Grandmother seeing the same things as their friends.
The idea is quite in-genius, perhaps explaining why Facebook has as many users as people in the country of Brazil and why it takes on upto 5 million new members every week. Looking at how profitable the company is rumored to be, I cant help but wish I had came up with the idea.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/16/technology/hempel_facebook.fortune/index.htm
Well I found a very interesting article concerning Facebook and its affect on the mental health of its users. According to recent studies it increases jealousy among its users, particularly when it comes to a person checking up on their partner. It says some people say stalking a partner on Facebook increases jealousy aswell as becoming addictive. The studies show it has an effect on college students relationship aswell but further study need to be carried out to see if it also has a matching effect on more mature adult relationships. Facebook originally set-up to help promote relationships might just be doing the opposite in some cases.
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/7/32721/facebook-fosters-jealousy-says-study.html
There is no doubt in my mind that Facebook is taking over our lives, I already spend too much time on it doing more or less nothing and playing pointless and very basic games, I cant seem to help myself though and as I try to ween myself of it I realize I might aswell be online because everybody else is anyway. One question I have always wanted an answer to is why is Facebook so popular compared to other social networking sites?
According to this article the 24 year old creator facebook wanted to try and re-create the relationships which we have in life, that is why we can join different clubs and groups, send each other presents among many other things. It also allows the user to specifically adjust their privacy settings in order to display different aspects of their personality to different people. As they may not want their Grandmother seeing the same things as their friends.
The idea is quite in-genius, perhaps explaining why Facebook has as many users as people in the country of Brazil and why it takes on upto 5 million new members every week. Looking at how profitable the company is rumored to be, I cant help but wish I had came up with the idea.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/16/technology/hempel_facebook.fortune/index.htm
Technology article #1
I came across this article on the MSNBC news website and found it interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly I was very close to getting my X-box chipped just before Microsoft start cutting people from the X-box live service. After reading this article Im glad that I didn’t because the money that I could have saved by chipping my X-box and downloading pirate games for a lot cheaper would have been lost if my console had been banned from using their live service. I was told that if you got caught playing a “modded” X-box only your gamertag was blocked from live, meaning it would not cost you too much money to create a new one, around 30 euro. This fee is a lot more modest than having to buy a new console if you get banned but still wish to use their service, you would also have to invest in a new subscription to X-box live, which is more money again. To be honest I don’t blame Microsoft for doing this, as the article states this was all done coming up to the launch of Halo 3 and Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2. Both of which were highly anticipated releases and have huge numbers of people playing them on X-box live, so Microsoft were insuring they got their monies worth for both game sales aswell as cashing in on gamers having to replace banned consoles and having to re-new subscriptions to their live service.
The article also states that there are up to 20 million users of X-box live worldwide and they recently banned upto 1 million users, that’s roughly 5% of people who use the service worldwide, so that is a lot of money, even for a company as big as Microsoft that is a lot of money. Those figures also do not include any new subscribers to X-box’s live service due to the release of the before mentioned games (myself included). I suppose the only thing to do is to abide by Microsoft’s rules, for the time being atleast, until someone with a level of computer knowledge above the creator of computers finds a way to cheat the system.
It says some gamers “mod” their X-bos in order to access a larger hard drive, also gamers think that they should be allowed do so as they own their console. However, looking at it from a realistic point of view, Microsoft are not going to allow people to cheat them out of money they would otherwise get from console part sales, like larger hard drives which can be bought at inflated prices of course. I must say I don’t agree that peoples consoles should be banned because of “modding” in order to achieve larger hard drives, although in the case of people playing pirate games I do find it acceptable. As all you have to do is look at the state of the record industry due to their inability to combat pirating.
The article also states the problem with blocking consoles rather than gamer cards, as people who trade them in or sell them to people second hand. As the people who buy them are really getting a raw deal as they cant use the console on X-box live as they might have intended to? The journalist questions whether Microsoft could not come up with a better wat of dealing with blocking people without having a console banned permanently, but realistically speaking, a company as large as Microsoft aren’t going to go out of their way to cater for the little man, these cases occur on far too small a scale for Microsoft to really consider any other way of dealing with piracy.
Overall I must say I don’t have any real issue with Microsoft banning consoles that have been altered, as I knew when I was considering getting mine done, it is illegal and there has to be consequences if you get caught. Perhaps I would think otherwise if I myself had been banned or had purchased a banned console, but from a neutral perspective I find it a fair enough procedure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33866696/ns/technology_and_science-games/
The article also states that there are up to 20 million users of X-box live worldwide and they recently banned upto 1 million users, that’s roughly 5% of people who use the service worldwide, so that is a lot of money, even for a company as big as Microsoft that is a lot of money. Those figures also do not include any new subscribers to X-box’s live service due to the release of the before mentioned games (myself included). I suppose the only thing to do is to abide by Microsoft’s rules, for the time being atleast, until someone with a level of computer knowledge above the creator of computers finds a way to cheat the system.
It says some gamers “mod” their X-bos in order to access a larger hard drive, also gamers think that they should be allowed do so as they own their console. However, looking at it from a realistic point of view, Microsoft are not going to allow people to cheat them out of money they would otherwise get from console part sales, like larger hard drives which can be bought at inflated prices of course. I must say I don’t agree that peoples consoles should be banned because of “modding” in order to achieve larger hard drives, although in the case of people playing pirate games I do find it acceptable. As all you have to do is look at the state of the record industry due to their inability to combat pirating.
The article also states the problem with blocking consoles rather than gamer cards, as people who trade them in or sell them to people second hand. As the people who buy them are really getting a raw deal as they cant use the console on X-box live as they might have intended to? The journalist questions whether Microsoft could not come up with a better wat of dealing with blocking people without having a console banned permanently, but realistically speaking, a company as large as Microsoft aren’t going to go out of their way to cater for the little man, these cases occur on far too small a scale for Microsoft to really consider any other way of dealing with piracy.
Overall I must say I don’t have any real issue with Microsoft banning consoles that have been altered, as I knew when I was considering getting mine done, it is illegal and there has to be consequences if you get caught. Perhaps I would think otherwise if I myself had been banned or had purchased a banned console, but from a neutral perspective I find it a fair enough procedure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33866696/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The monotony of public transport...
Along with a host of other college students I have to commute every single day to and from college, and Im sure they'll all agree, its absolute torture. The continuos cycle of having to get up too early, rush to the stop, just make the bus, try and sleep as it stops at every single stop on the way, your head banging on the window and being awoken to the brutal reality that your not even half way to college. Its enough to drive any person insane, thank god Im a psychology student!
Is it time for video refs in football?
I think I'd be right to say that along with the rest of the Irish nation that i was disgusted with the manner in which France got through to the World Cup Finals in South Africa. We are all looking for justice, but being realistic, France are on their way to South Africa and we certainly are not. The fact of the matter is Henry cheated and got away with it, and whilst we can all blame him, until Fifa decide they really want to remove cheating from the game and introduce the technology available it will continue to happen. This is one of many incidents that could have been properly refereed if the video ref was introduced at professional level. I wonder with th growing number of incidents and the stage on which they occur becoming more and more important, what exactly will it take for video referee's to be introduced?
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