Calibrate Your Mouse

This article was written on November 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

mouse calibration You know how when you get a pocket PC or a tablet PC, you have to start out by touching different points on the screen using the stylus to calibrate it? Mice are no different! From time to time you need to calibrate them so that they will work correctly. Using this ten second process, you’ll have a fully calibrated mouse without needing any software. It’s completely web-based so you don’t have to install anything. If you’re still having problems after calibration, consult a friend to help. ;)

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN MOUSE CALIBRATION

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Amazon Launches Wireless Portable Reading Device

This article was written on November 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

After three years in the making, Amazon has launched a wireless portable reading device called Kindle which they hope can improve “the book.” When I saw the price tag that read $399, I couldn’t help but initially think “who’s going to buy this at that price.” After reading about all that Kindle has to offer, I could easily see this turning into a “must-have” for book enthusiasts and something people would be willing to spend the money on.

kindle

One of the best features about Kindle is that it’s wireless.  You have instant access to over 90,000 blogs, books, magazines, and newspapers.  Say you’re on the train on your way to work and you wanted a new book to read to pass the time. All you’d have to do is power-up your Kindle and you could select what you wanted to read. The best part – no service or data plan is required! It uses Sprint’s high-speed data network so that you have instant access to the reading material that you want to read. Once you selected the material you wanted, it would be sent to your device.

Other features:

  • Search Wikipedia for free
  • Everything is backed-up at Kindle.com (if you lose the device or it breaks, you can get it all back)
  • Sharp and natural display with no glare (looks nothing like reading on a computer screen)
  • Light weight! Weighs only 10.3 ounces and can carry 200 books at a time

kingle Obviously the content that you want is going to cost because as we all know, books aren’t free.  Here’s a look at some of their prices: a monthly subscription to a newspaper will be $13.99 while a monthly subscription to a magazine will be $1.49 per month. Prices for books will vary, and if you wanted to read a blog, the monthly subscription fee is $1.99.  Personally, I think it would be better if they offered plans for blogs like for $5 or $6 so that you could read as many blogs as you wanted. $1.99 per month could really ad up if there are multiple blogs you like to keep track of.

It’ll be interesting to see if many people will buy it, but also if this will help out the e-book business which has been a flop. Given the price, I don’t think it’ll be something that people will instantly run out to buy, so Amazon better have some marketing tricks up their sleeves if they want this to turn into something more than Sony’s Portable Reader System.

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My Extensive Review Of The Sony H1 Megazoom Digital Camera

This article was written on February 02, 2006 by CyberNet.

My Extensive Review Of The Sony H1 Megazoom Digital Camera

Every digital camera that I have ever owned has been made by Sony. I have always enjoyed the layout of their features and the quality of their cameras. Every camera that I owned I never had any problems with, but instead I upgrade them to stay current with the technology that consistently develops with the cameras. Currently, I own the Sony DSC-T5 and the Sony H1. Both of these cameras are great, but each also serves their own purpose.

The DSC-H1 is a 5.1 MP digital camera with a 12X zoom. It also sports a 2.5″ LCD screen which makes it wonderful to view the pictures that you have snapped. You are also capable of manually controlling many features of the camera, such as shutter speed.

I purchased this camera as a replacement to my Sony Mavica MVC-CD500 which was also a really nice 5.1 MP camera. The size of the H1 is comparably smaller than the Mavica which makes it a little nicer to carry around and to handle. The Mavica only had a 3X optical zoom which was nothing when compared to the H1′s 12X optical zoom.

The H1 has an image stabilization feature which is found on many camcorders. This feature has recently become popular on digital cameras and is super nice to have. There are some images that I take that it is hard to keep the camera still, and the image stabilization makes a noticeable difference when compared to the Mavica which lacked this feature.

When looking at replacing my Mavica I did examine the market. I looked at cameras such as the Canon S2 which has many comparable features. The S2 does have a smaller LCD screen but it swivels out. This allows the user to hold the camera above them while still being able to view the contents of the picture. While this was a nice feature, it did not compensate for the smaller screen. Also, the placement of the zoom controls was not what I was accustomed to. On the Sony H1 it is in the normal position (where your right thumb can easily control it), however, on the Canon S2 the zoom is placed on the shutter button (it is a kind of ‘slider’). This made me a little weary that I would be trying to zoom but instead would be taking photos.

A nice feature of the S2 is the movie capabilities. It allows a user who is taking video to zoom in and zoom out while recording, which is something that the Sony H1 does not do. You can record movies on the H1 but you cannot zoom in/out without stopping the recording and starting it again. The Canon S2 will not let you record over 7 minute segments at one time (just a limitation for some reason), even if you have a 2 GB memory card. When I put my 2 GB memory card in my H1 it says I have 1.5 hours of recording time left at highest quality.

Battery power is of course a top concern for many people. The Sony H1 comes with 2 rechargeable AA batteries and the charger. These batteries seem to last me around 200-300 photos (about half of which use the flash). That number isn’t bad considering that I transfer the photos off of the camera for every 15-20 pictures. While the H1 only uses 2 AA batteries at one time the Canon S2 uses 4 AA batteries. They estimate that the batteries for the S2 will last almost 600 photos of standard use.

Finally, here is the last comparison that I will make. With the Canon S2 you have to manually open the flash in order to use it (even if it recognizes that you are in a low-light condition), but the Sony H1 will have the flash automatically pop-up for you.

I just have one memory card between my Sony H1 and my Sony T5 because my T5 takes a Sony Duo Memory Stick and the H1 takes the Sony Memory Stick. When I bought the memory card for my T5 it came with an adapter to convert the Duo card to a normal memory stick. This is really nice because I purchased the 2 GB Sony Duo Memory Stick High Speed version which was $130 on eBay so I didn’t really want to spend more money on another card.

The reason that I have a Sony T5 and H1 is because of portability issues. I like the idea of keeping my camera in my pocket but I also like the power of a fully manual camera. Having two separate cameras was the only solution I was able to find and it seems to be working very well. The T5 is really really nice to just throw in your pocket but I do have to say that the H1 takes slightly nicer photos.

My decision to purchase the Sony H1 was a great one because the camera was very well designed. I got it for $385 (with shipping) from Electronics Expo. They shipped it the next day and I was very pleased with their service.

If you have any questions that you would like me to answer feel free to leave a comment here so that I can answer it for everyone.

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Sprint is Crawling in the Mobile Phone Race

This article was written on January 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

iPhone Mickey Mouse In the race of who can attract the most subscribers and keep them onboard in the mobile phone world, Sprint is crawling! Their subscribers are leaving by the thousands, and because of that, their employees are forced to leave in the thousands as well. In a News Release dated January 18th, Sprint says that in the fourth quarter alone, they experienced a loss of 683,000  post-paid subscribers (meaning those with monthly service plans and contracts) and 202,000 pre-paid users. In all, they saw 885,000 subscribers walk out the door and head to other services.

What happens when such a large number of people leave? Well, the obvious. They don’t need as many employees to deal with customer’s needs, and they don’t need as many retail stores.  Sprint is expected to kick 4,000 employees to the curb and close 8 percent (or 125) of their retail locations, and 4,000 third-party distribution points. All of these changes should be complete by the end of the first half of the year.  By doing this, they’re hoping to reduce their labor costs by $700-$800 million by the end of the year.

So who and what is to blame for this decrease? Well, first of all, Sprint themselves are partially to blame.  Remember all of those contracts they canceled because the users were calling too much? I think the iPhone is partially to blame too. People who wanted the iPhone bad enough were willing to cancel their contracts with other service providers like Sprint to head over to AT&T. With the popularity of the iPhone, I think every mobile provider has had a difficult time.

It was just two weeks ago that Ryan and I ended up calling Sprint to cancel our service.  We’ve both been Sprint customers for years, but after multiple customer service issues, we decided not to renew our contract when it ran out at the beginning of January and head over to AT&T. One such issue was being charged per KB for Internet usage when we were supposed to have had an Internet plan. By the time we realized it, we had racked up over $100 in Internet usage. Calling customer service was useless– they said they couldn’t do anything about it! It took calling and asking to speak with the CEO before we could actually get connected with someone who was able to fix the issue.

Ryan made the phone call to cancel two week ago and it was clear that they were willing to do just about anything to keep us as subscribers. Here’s what they offered (all of which, we declined):

  • Three months of service for free if we stayed with them (this would be tempting for a lot of people, but they were also banking on the fact that we’d forget to call back and cancel) 
  • We declined the first offer- so they said we could give the phones to friends to use the three free months
  • A plan to use direct connect only
  • Keep the phone number active for $5 per month in case we wanted to come back

Definitely not a good start to the year for Sprint!

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Dell Laptop EXPLODES At A Conference

This article was written on June 21, 2006 by CyberNet.

Dell Laptop EXPLODES At A Conference
 

Gizmodo was quick to point out that a Dell laptop exploded at a recent Japanese conference. The model of the laptop has not been revealed yet but if you are a Dell laptop owner then you should make sure that your battery has not been recalled.

Gizmodo and the original source, The Inquirer, both talk about how airline companies could eventually ban computers because of incidents like this. While this is a very serious issue there are a lot of things currently unknown about the situation. Maybe it was possible that the computer had a non-OEM battery in it that was unexpectedly inferior?

Well, I guess this brings a whole new meaning to laptops that burn up your lap!

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CyberDays: The Amazing Commodore 64

This article was written on August 12, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNet's CyberDays
How It All Began…

Computers do so much more than play solitaire which is contrary to what most people think. Okay, just because I mentioned solitaire doesn’t mean you have to open it and start playing…come on, focus!

These Are Some Old Computers

So what is the computer pictured above? It is the Commodore 64 (C-64) computer that was released back in 1982 and became extremely popular. This puts it into perspective a little:

More C-64′s have been sold than any other single computer system, even to this day. That’s about 17 million systems, according to the Commodore 1993 Annual Report. In a 1989 interview, Sam Tramiel, then-president of Commodore, said that “When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years.”

This was an awesome gaming machine which had 3-channels for sound a high-resolution graphics mode. If I remember my stats right that means it is right up there with the Xbox 360! :D

The manufacturer eventually got costs down to about $25 for all costs which meant consumers only had to pay $200 to own what is now a piece of history. Heck, they are still getting around $60 on eBay which is a pretty slow depreciation compared to most electronics.

If you want to see more computers from back in the day you should head on over to OldComputers.net. There you’ll find a huge amount of information on some of the most ancient computers. While you are there you should read through some of the old computer ads that they have…ahh the good old days.

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Optimus ‘Digital’ Keyboard To Be Expected On February 1?

This article was written on January 09, 2006 by CyberNet.

Optimus Digital Keyboard To Be Expected On February 1

This new keyboard could be what to expect in the future. It seems like it is pretty clever by giving users the ultimate in customization. There will be no more putting those little sticker logos on your keyboard to represent the shortcut, now you will use the actual icon. This is all compliments of Russia’s Art Lebedev Studio.

News Source: Engadget

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Mac Sales Up, iPod Sales Level Out in Q2

This article was written on April 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

Apple Logo.pngEver since Apple switched to Intel processors, they’ve seen the sales of their Mac computers go up, and up, and up. Part of this is probably due to the fact that former PC users feel comfortable making the “switch” knowing they can run Windows if need be. Apple’s fiscal second quarter just ended, and as the trend has been going lately, sales of Mac computers were up once again. In the official press release from Apple, they outlined just how many computers were sold.

In the 2nd quarter, over 2.2 million Mac computers were sold. To break it down further, notebook sales were up 61% (perhaps part of this increase is because of MacBook Air computers?) and desktops were up 37%. Out of the buyers who purchased a new computer from Apple this quarter, 50% of them were new to Mac which when you think about it, is pretty amazing. While Apple is far, far behind compared to the sales of PC computers, they’re doing a remarkable job gaining new users.

Also interesting are the numbers of iPods and iPhones that were sold. It almost looks as though the market is getting saturated with iPods because the sales for the 2nd quarter really didn’t go anywhere. Around 10.6 million iPods shipped this year in the 2nd quarter compared to 10.5 million in the 2nd quarter last year. About 1.7 million iPhones sold which is down compared to the 2.3 million that were shipped in their 1st fiscal quarter of 2008. One thought here is that iPod sales are flat because more people are investing in iPhones instead?

In all, Apple’s 2nd quarter revenue was around $7.51 billion which is up 43% from their 2nd quarter last year when revenue was $5.26 billion.

For those of you just skimming through, here’s a quick re-cap:

  • 2.2 million Macs shipped in the 2nd quarter
  • 61% of the sales were laptops
  • 37% were desktops
  • 50% of retail buyers are new to Mac

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OLPC to Dual-Boot Linux and Windows?

This article was written on January 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

Computer World is reporting that there’s a new development in the One Laptop Per Child computer program.  According to Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of OLPC, they’re working together with Microsoft to develop a dual-boot system which would make Linux and Windows available on the affordable computers being sent to developing countries. Negroponte said, “We are working with them very closely to make a dual-boot system so that, like on an Apple, you can boot either one up.  The version that’s up and running of Windows on the XO is very fast, it’s very, very successful.  We’re working very hard to do both.”

So which version of Windows would they be running on the computers? You guessed it, Windows XP.  That’s the version that Microsoft has offered for the project. While it sounds great to have a computer that can dual-boot two different operating systems, I’m wondering if they really expect that children from developing countries to use both? Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet came up with another good question worth thinking about – “Will XO laptops even have enough horsepower to dual-boot Windows and Linux?

Microsoft is known for their charity work in developing countries.  In fact, they have a rather strong presence in certain countries and work with governments of those countries to build computer labs.  Getting involved with charity is just something they do, so in this situation, and they offering XP as a nice gesture, or is there an ulterior motive? At least it makes sense now as to why Microsoft gave 40 engineers the daunting task of getting Windows XP running on the OLPC.

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1 in 3 iPhones Unlocked… duh!

This article was written on January 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

Buy Unlocked iPhones Macworld put 2 and 2 together today to figure out that there are over 1 million iPhones that are unaccounted for from Apple’s numbers. Earlier Apple said that 3.7 million iPhones were sold in 2007 during the first 6 months it was available. AT&T on the other hand, said that they have a little under two million iPhone customers. Combining that with the estimated 400,000 iPhones in Europe leaves us with over a million that mysteriously disappeared into the abyss.

That abyss is the world of unlocking, where people modify devices they can be used on any network… and eBay is a seller’s haven for unlocked iPhones! I went through some of the completed auctions for unlocked iPhones, and there is one successfully being sold just about every 2 minutes. Sellers who ship internationally fetch upwards of $600 or $700 for an unlocked iPhone, which isn’t bad considering that the devices retail for just $400. That comes out to hundreds of these being sold everyday on eBay!

I actually expected the number of unlocked iPhones to be even higher because of all the people in foreign countries who want to use these on their own networks. It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues to rise, or if AT&T will still be getting a majority of the subscribers.

Thanks to Andrew for the tip!

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