RF Communication Test circuit

Today i started to test some RF Modules that i have got from a friend. RF( Radio Frequency) Module that i have is a Transmitter and a Receiver, which communicate at a frequency of 433.92 MHz.
These modules are awesome because i have to feed serial data to it and it transmit using ASK or AM Modulation method. Still i am doing tests on the circuits and for the time being, the data transfered was successful. I will update you all once i complete the tests.

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Review Jack of Fables Vol 2 4

While Fables keeps going from strength to strength, Jack of Fables was for me, a bit of a dud. I read the first 6 issues but it didnt compel me to spend money, so I checked Vols 2, 3, and 4 from the library to see if got any better.

The story has to overcome several problems. First of all, Jack himself is an incredibly unsympathetic character. Secondly, the problems encountered in Jack of Fables arent all that interesting. You get impatient with the characters inability to see the obvious, and one would think that with immortality, even the most insipid personifications would eventually realize that his capers are repetitious and his continuing attempts to get rich never end well.

The art is good, but not so good that you can forgive the relatively lame stories. The introduction of the literals also draw a yawn, which is one of the many things that made Fables 13 boring and silly.

The mystery of why Fables was so much better was solved when I met Willingham, who said he handed over Jack of Fables to Matthew Sturges, because he felt that Matthew deserved a break. Well, Sturges talent isnt in the same caliber as Willinghams, and it shows.

This series is only worth checking out from your local library.

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What Is a Thumbs db File

If youre still using Windows XP, you may have noticed that folders of digital images usually contain a file called Thumbs.db. Youve probably wondered what it is and whether you can safely delete it.

Thumbs.db is a system file that contains the thumbnail cache--a collection of thumbnail images for photos, documents, Web pages, and so on--for a particular folder. It saves Windows XP from having to render the thumbnails individually each time you open the folder, instead displaying them lickety-split. Vista and Windows 7 each store their thumbnails elsewhere, which is why you dont see such a file on newer systems.

Can you delete Thumbs.db? Yes, but I wouldnt recommend doing so. Instead, tweak Windows so that it no longer shows system files like that one. Run Windows Explorer, and click Tools, Folder Options. Select the View tab, and scroll down to ‘Hidden files and folders. Clear the box next to Show hidden files and folders, and then click OK. Presto: Though Thumbs.db will still be there, youll no longer have to look at it.

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Review Neptunes Brood

Neptunes Brood is set in the same world as Saturns Children, but is not a direct sequel in style, tone, or humor. This is a feature, since Saturns Children, as much as I enjoyed it, was a Heinlein Pastische, and you dont need too many of those.

Science Fiction is often called the literature of ideas because its frequently lacking in other areas like character, plot, and pacing. As a hard science fiction writer, Stross demonstrates this in this book, which frequently reads more like a treatise in interstellar commerce than a novel. There are long expositions abound in which the reader is lectured to (shades of Asimov) about Fast Money (cash), Medium Money (investments), and Slow Money (interstellar bitcoinage), and how Spanish Prisoner and other fraud schemes would occur in the absence of FTL travel and only lightspeed communications.

Now, all this works only because the characters are all post-human, including the narrator/protagonist (Krina), a historian/accountant who specializes in audits and has a sideline/interest in investigating slow money fraud. As a result, she can "beam" to various locations and travel via starship to places without a beacon. The plot revolves around Krinas visit to her sister Ana. When Ana disappears before she gets there, Krina investigates and gets dropped into a web of intrigue when everyone she talks to, works for, or is arrested by wants a piece of whatever Ana seems to have found before she disappeared.

Like you would expect in a science fiction novel where all the fun happens in the exposition, Krina isnt much of an active entity in the story. She gets dragged and dropped by other forces outside her control pretty much throughout the novel, and never really initiates anything herself. This allows her to exposit on topics that Stross considers important for the reader to know.

The ending, much like with Saturns Children, comes together in a hurry after the great reveal (which isnt terribly exciting), and leaves the reader with most of the loose ends tied up and a deeper understanding of how Charles Stross feels the entire financial system is. There are lots of snide remarks about investment banking, bankers, accountants, and bank branches (one of them is a pirate outfit), but in the end, the reader isnt likely to gain any more expertise in economics as a result of reading this book than he already had. (On the other hand, Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman liked the book, but of course he would)

Now it sounds like I didnt enjoy this book, but I did. Its just that the audience for this book is likely to be incredibly narrow (geeks who enjoy Economics). To that audience, Id highly recommend this novel. It explores many ideas that few other science fiction novels do. For anyone else, Im afraid youre going to have to enjoy lectures or the novel just wont work.

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Financial Planning Talk

A random group of people invited me to give a talk about financial matters. It was deemed better to have the talk off-site, so thats what I did. While I could not put all the slides up, Ive put up a mostly sanitized version of the slides below in a Google presentation.

The talk went for about 50 minutes, and then I took about an hour or so of questions. Not all the questions were directed at me, as there were other financial experts at the talk. A pleasant surprise was Jeff Rothschild. I did not expect to see him there, since Jeff has probably forgotten more about financial planning than Ive learned, but it was great to see him.



Someone did ask me a question about real estate, and XiaoQin pointed out that I should have answered it like this: its one thing to hold REITs passively, its another to buy real estate to make money as a business. The people who successfully run real estate as a business (like John T Reed) did it full time. Reed, in particular, no longer advocates buy-and-hold as a viable strategy for making money in real estate. (He said this even before the housing bubble!) He believes that you make money by buying below market value, or for cash flow with a cap rate of 10% or better. For everyone else, treat housing like a consumption decision, not an investment decision.

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System Mechanic Professional 9 5 Review and Download

System Mechanic Professional is a longtime favorite and comprehensive suite of system utilities. The software program stands out among other system repair programs. The suite has many powerful tools that can help diagnose, repair, and optimize a system. System Mechanic comes with several powerful tools including built in security applications, disk analysis programs, and tools to diagnose system problems. With a fairly easy to use interface, many users can use the system suite right out of the box. The registry tools are also comprehensive and powerful enough to clean up many troublesome registries. Backup and recovery functions are also included.

System mechanic is available as a retail product or can be downloaded from the developer’s website. Updates are regularly produced on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. During our test period with System Mechanic, we had several major updates that we installed from the developer’s website which were automatically downloaded. The suite also has a moderate footprint that will not drag a system down in speed or over use system resources. The suite can also be integrated or used alongside other utility programs as well as antivirus programs. The program picked up our security suite right away without any conflicts.

System Mechanic also includes many automatic monitoring tools that alert users when their system needs attention or has problems. These alerts include problems with system security, invalid registry entries, and hard drive problems. Users have the ability to ignore, use, or even deactivate the automatic scans. Other interesting functions include a report function that shows all previous repairs made by the program and any updates installed. Users can also choose to use automatic repair tools or use individual tools included with the program. Both beginners and advanced system users will find powerful tools that can help overcome many system problems.

Features:

System Mechanic comes with a great many tools for PC owners that wish to keep their system running in good shape. The tools include disk analysis, disk repair, registry repair, security software, a built in firewall program, system reporting functions, optimization tools, and automatic repair solutions. Both beginners and advanced system users will find different levels of tools that can be used to repair a system.

Other functions include a detailed hardware reporting tool, a hard drive cleaning tool, and network tools. The reporting tools are detailed and can be easily viewed with sub reports given for each type of system device or hardware. Users can set up System Mechanic to perform automatic repair jobs such as disk defragmentation or registry repair. The tools will then be run at automatic periods and users will not need to interact with the process or even be present during their active periods. Another great tool is the ability to back track on previous System Mechanic repair functions.

Interface:

The interface and menu system is easy to navigate. Beginners can use the program right away with minimal instruction. The menu system shows each section of tools on the left side with an application screen on the right side. A nice feature is that users can change the interface to their general liking. Tabs can be changed with different tools or color schemes.

Performance:

System Mechanic performed fairly well. And while its not a speed demon, the background tasks and scanners were fast and did not weigh down on the overall system speed. The menu system worked quickly and repair tools performed their jobs faster than the built in tools found in Windows. Automatic tools can be setup to run in the background and use up little of a system’s resources while running. Even resource-intensive tasks such as the disk defragmentation program are fast, especially when compared to the built in Windows disk defragmentation program.

Updates:

Iolo provides constant updates to System Mechanic. Most of the updates are set to be automatically downloaded or completed upon the user’s request. The program also asks for confirmation before installing an update. Among all the system repair programs we reviewed, System Mechanic had the best update systems available.

Help and Support:

Support is offered by Iolo and users can register for accounts online. Support is given through email, online forums, FAQs, updates, and general guide sheets. The FAQ section shows many popular questions and answers. Also offered is a fairly comprehensive guide to all the functions of System Mechanic and its different tools. Each tool and function is explained in the guide with clear text.

Summary:

System Mechanic has evolved over the past several years to be a front runner among system repair programs. It offers a fairly easy to use interface while providing powerful tools to repair or optimize a system. Automatic tools can be setup to run at the user’s discretion. The ability of System Mechanic to work alongside other programs such as Kaspersky Internet Security Suite is a major plus. Other system repair software programs may ask users to uninstall third party security software before installation.

Iolo also includes system analysis and reporting tools that are very detailed for troubleshooting a system. System owners can use the reports to examine a faulty component, driver, or installed software application to repair a system. Since finding a system problem can be a large time consuming effort, this function is a great feature.

While no system software will be perfect, System Mechanic comes close. However, there were a few problems that we found during the review process that should be mentioned. One is that there are functions listed that are simply links to other products offered by Iolo. This type of advertising is a little confusing, as users may not realize that those functions are not included with the program. It would have been better to note those functions that are not included with System Mechanic. Perhaps another problem was the lack of the interface scalability when changing window sizes. When first loading System Mechanic, the software runs in a smaller window. However, if a user chooses to maximize the window then content is only displayed on a corner section the screen.

These issues aside, the large feature set of System Mechanic will help any system owner deal with a wide range of problems. Most of the features provide greater assistance for operating system problems such as problematic registry entries, improperly uninstalled programs, system clutter, and configuration issues. Other tools that address physical system components include system reporting tools and disk management functions that work very well.

The price tag of $59.95 is fairly steep, but well worth the cost with so many included features. Users will find a wide range of functions that might normally require several programs to provide. During the review period, the program ran quickly and without errors. Its small footprint means that users will not find their system speed minimized by the program’s functions. System Mechanic runs very well in the background and with other applications running.

There is a great deal to like about System Mechanic Professional. Not only does it offer a multitude of system tools but also many ways to examine a system’s components. The interface is clean and uncluttered, making navigation easy for all types of users. The program license also allows for the software to be installed on multiple computers at the same time.

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Hot n Cold

I did some tests with LM35DZ, which is a temperature sensor with analog out put. I connected it to micro controllers ADC (Analog to Digital Converter). The out put of the sensor is 10mV/°C After some calculations, ADC value was converted to centigrade.
Finally it works, i am able to monitor the room temperature from my LCD Display. At beginning i used an my multimeter to differentiate the sensor value and actual room temperature, the meter reading and LCD reading was perfect. After a while i got an idea to detect temperature and give alarm or warning. I modified the code and little bit and tadaaaaa i can verify the temperature variation. Actually i did was if the temperature is greater than 40°c, give an warning, lit an LED or drive a buzzer.
I think this is a cool one for these days. Cause its hot..

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review tp link mr 3020

i just buy tplink mr3020 a few days ago.its at 17 august 2012. this is a simple review of tp-link mr3020 that i have made....  fresh open from the box. the hardware is very small that it can put into your pocket. really portable.

there is hardware version tipe of tp-link  as you can see beside the box.

mine is version 1.6 you can find tp-links supported firmware at http://www.tp-link.com/en/support/download/?model=TL-MR3020&version=V1#tbl_j. its recomended to upgrade the firmware version to the latest update as soon as possible because it provides more compatibility and features.

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SEAGATE BARRACUDA 3TB Hard drive Review

At 4.6 cents per gigabyte, you can’t afford to pass up the Barracuda 3TB.

It’s weird to say this, but the sweet-spot hard drive is the same as the Best of the Best hard drive. The 3TB Seagate Barracuda is the best combination of price, performance, and capacity, whether you’re using it as your only drive or as the backup for a boot SSD. Its sequential read and write speeds of over 150MB/s make it the fastest 7,200rpm drive we’ve ever tested, and its price of $140 means its per-gigabyte cost is only 4.6 cents, making it the best value on the market right now. By contrast, 2TB “Green” drives, which spin at around 5,900rpm, are around $120 from WD and Seagate right now. Why pay more per gigabyte for slower storage? Cost-per-gigabyte goes way up as size goes down, too, especially for any drive under 1TB.

If your budget can’t stretch to $140 and you don’t have an SSD, you’ll want to pri-oritize performance over capacity. Get a 2TB Barracuda (make sure it’s one of the two-platter 7,200rpm ones with 64MB of cache).

At $100, that’s 5 cents per gigabyte. 2TB WD Caviar Black drives, on the other hand, are over $200 at press time.

If you do have an SSD and you only have, say, $85 or $90, get the 1.5TB Barracuda Green from NCIX US. It’s one of the few drives over 1TB that are under $100 right now, though we hope that changes as the in-dustry recovers.

Whether Seagate is engaged in a price war or it just fared better in the Thailand floods of last year, its drive prices are unbeatable at press time, and the 3TB Barracuda is by far the most screaming deal.

SPECIFICATIONS

	Price	Price per Gigabyte	Spin Speed rpm)	Cache (MB)
3TB Seagate Barracuda	$140	0.047	7.200	64
1.5TB Seagate Barracuda Green	$70	0.047	5.900	64
3TB WD Caviar Green	$148	0.049	5.400	64
2TB Seagate Barracuda	$100	0.050	7.200	64
2TB Seagate Barracuda Green	$100	0.050	5.900	64
1.5TB Seagate Barracuda	$82	0.055	7.200	32
2TB WD Caviar Green	$110	0.055	5.400	64
3TB HGST Deskstar	$200	0.068	7.200	64
1TB WD Caviar Blue	$83	0.083	7.200	32
1TB Seagate Barracuda	$86	0.086	7.200	64
1TB WD Caviar Green	$89	0.089	5.400	32

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A new age in cyber warfare — Anonymous LulzSec and Stuxnet

A New age in cyber warfare - Anonymous, Lulz and Stuxnet

Growing up in the nineties, television and film made me believe that hackers could do anything. I pictured an emaciated Russian teenager typing on the keyboard of his multiple monitor display, green text scrolling down a black screen. Those scrawny fingers could assume identities or muddle up traffic lights. They were the dark practitioners of mysterious arts. Those were the early days of the web, though, when it was all still a bit wild west. It was before the September that never ended. The internet is supposed to be safe and established these days. Surely internet security experts, with their ever increasing budgets, are on top of all this.

But, as the Internet has gotten larger, deeper and more powerful, so too have its mavericks.

Hacking has never sat so openly in the public eye. Whether their cause be anarcho-policitical, like Anonymous, or more comedic and malicious, like LulzSec, hackers are taking on and embarrassing some of the largest and most powerful entities in the world. While Anonymous claims to defend free speech and whatever cause it’s decided to adopt that week, and Lulzsec targets any and everyone, simply for the “lulz”, neither should be underestimated.

Both have proven that they are more than capable not only of directing brute DDoS attacks, but also of more finessed forms of espionage. Both openly flaunt their victories, both often publicly announce their targets. Both have shown tremendous resistance to any attempts made by authorities to shut them down. At the same time, they have put out a call to come together to combine in full out cyber war against government, corporate and bank secrecy and security across the world. They have called it Antisec. Nevertheless, there are also many rumours flying around about infighting between the two groups.

Despite their capabilities and public profiles, Anonymous and LulzSec are groups of (assumed) private citizens. They are without large scale financial backing and their resources are limited. As cyber superiority becomes more and more important, so governments take ever-increasing notice. For an example of how this kind of modern warfare — when fought between nation states — may look, we need only to think about what happened only a year ago, in what was possibly one of the most dangerous acts of cyber warfare in history.

I am talking about Stuxnet.

Stuxnet was a worm which emerged in June of 2010, a sophisticated self-replicating computer virus designed with intelligence agency precision and military implications. It was first discovered by an obscure information security company from Minsk, called VirusBlokAda, because an Iranian client’s computer would not stop rebooting.

Upon inspection by security experts world-wide, it quickly became clear that Stuxnet was a worm like no other, employing many zero-day exploits and multiple programming languages ( It also became clear that it was written by multiple programmers).

Without delving into the details, Stuxnet initially spread via flash drives, using four different zero-day Microsoft Windows exploits and one of two stolen genuine digital signatures (from Realtek and JMicron) to hide itself.

Following this, it spread inside private networks. Once infected, Stuxnet remained hidden, only coming into play when on a computer that runs the appropriate industrial based Siemens software, and following this, only when that computer was connected to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).

PLC’s are the digital computers used for automated electromechanical processes, like turning valves on and off, timing traffic lights, or in this example, spinning uranium centrifuges in nuclear power plants. It installed itself on the PLCs, and was programmed to only affect and modify PLCs that met the specific parameters of those involved in the Iranian uranium enrichment infrastructure.

When the worm’s targets were discovered by cyber security experts, the mailing systems that might warn them were systematically DDoSed. Iran has not fully revealed the extent to which Stuxnet has damaged their nuclear program, but we know that it has made a significant impact.

This was a cyber attack which was specifically intended to hamper Iran’s development of nuclear energy and/or weapons, a far cry from the usual financial or symbolic aims of rogue hackers. The resources required to create such a worm imply a strong motive with governmental power behind it. It even had a few fail-safes included that would prevent it from spreading beyond its intended targets, such as an expiry date set for 2012 and limiting each computer to only infecting three more. Despite these fingerprints of government involvement, there is no way of telling where exactly Stuxnet came from. Certain elements within the programming suggest American involvement, while there are many Hebrew references within the code, suggesting a possible Israeli origin. The origins of Stuxnet, though, are currently bound to rumour and speculation.

Stuxnet is now available online for anyone to inspect, modify and potentially use. Of course, all the zero-days are now closed, and the certificates are no longer genuine, so it’s not quite as dangerous as it sounds.

Some have called Stuxnet the Hiroshima of cyber-warfare, one act that redefines the landscape in such a way that war can never be the same again.

Although this may be a bit of an exaggeration, the meaning is clear; Stuxnet was artificially limited, and was picked up and tackled by the best in the world. It was only ever going to hamper nuclear progress. It was effectively non-lethal. The next, or current, attack of a similar kind could be something far more nefarious. There is no oversight, and only a handful of precedents, for how these attacks can play out. Much as a biological virus can get out of control, so too can a digital virus.

While technology can be used to expose (Wikileaks), protest (Anonymous), organise (social media empowered activism) or ridicule (Lulzsec), perhaps we are forgetting who sits at the forefront of new technological developments.

Where publicly known hacker collectives — depending on your viewpoint — are proving slightly embarrassing or inspirational, government sponsored cyber-warfare can pose a very real threat to targeted nations or groups. Behind the doors of corporate and government superpowers, we simply don’t know what weapons and tools are being developed. On this new battlefield, where nations like the USA and China have already taken steps, we can only wait and see what kind of collateral damage may occur.

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A Publishing Milestone

Most people are comfortable with buying physical gifts for friends, such as books, DVDs, or phones. Most people, however, would not be comfortable digital goods for friends or family. These things seem very ephemeral, and of course, theres always the possibility of buying the wrong format, or buying them something that they cant possibly read on their latest gizmo.

Well, it seems like ebook readers have finally gotten to the point where people are buying electronic books as gifts. Today, someone bought a copy of Independent Cycle Touring as a gift for a friend. And yes, the PDF was designed to be compatible with an iPad. How did I do this without actually owning one? It turns out that iPads have a bug in their PDF readers that require me to turn on compatibility with Acrobat 4.0. I have no idea why that is, but the book is now about 400KB bigger as a result.

Its not obvious from any of my books web-sites how to do purchase a book as a gift, but it is actually straightforward. Just attach a note to your order when you buy one for a friend noting that its a gift and is meant to be sent to a specific e-mail address instead of to you. Since a human being handles every order at books.piaw.net, your wishes will be followed. This is one of the advantages of an indie store---it doesnt take any coding to make a special case.

Happy Holidays!

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Graphics Card Overclocking

Overclocking a graphics card is a great way to unlock higher framerates. In many cases, you are able to increase the performance of a GPU to that of the next better model. For example, AMD 6950 uses, basically, the same hardware as the 6970, just with a couple parts on the GPU core disabled and its at lower clocks. Well, if the hardware is the same then it should be able to hit the same clocks as the 6970, right? In many cases, this is true. For example, the AMD 5870 has a stock clock of 850 mhz, while Im able to get my 5850s to 870 mhz on stock voltage. Looking at the hard data, a 5870 has a 68 Gigatexels/second fill rate and a 153.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. My 5850s are at 62.6 Gigatexels/sec and 153.6 GB/s (from GPUZ). At the same time, brand new, my cards were $150 cheaper. Pretty good argument for overclocking, no?

A word of warning: As much as overclocking is supported, it is not officially supported. This means that should you damage your card and send it in for a replacement, and the support tech staff is able to determine that you overclocked your card, then your warranty is void. OCing through software makes it very difficult for them to determine this, whereas a flashed BIOS makes it extremely easy.

Ok, so, regardless of why you want to overclock, lets get into the basics of it.

Key Terms

Core means the actual GPU core, where most of the magic happens. The speed, in mhz, that your GPU core is running at is going to greatly affect the texture and pixel fillrate performance, which is a huge bottleneck in gaming.

Im not paid for complete testing ;)

Memory (VRAM) is where textures are stored as well as rendered frames. There are plenty of performance benefits to having a higher memory speed, considering that pretty much everything you see on screen is at one time in the memory.

I ran some tests on FurMark, at 1920x1080, showing how both core speed and memory speed can affect performance. As you can see in the graph, the framerate went up as the memory speed increased, with barely any change from core speed. It is important to note that this particular test was run using 4xMSAA. I also did some tests at 0xMSAA in FurMark, and it showed that only core speed had an improvement. Basically I just want to point out that for optimal overclocking, you need to focus on both memory and core speeds.

Voltage is what gives you stability. As the core speed increases, it may need an increase in voltage to remain stable, much like in CPU overclocking. Most higher end GPUs allow voltage modification, however, not all GPUs allow this. In some cases you might be able to also modify the VRAM voltage, but this is fairly uncommon. If you can, then in much the same way as core voltage, it can help you achieve higher clocks.

VRM is the Voltage Regulator Module. This is what adjusts your input voltage to that going into your GPU. These are very prone to over heating when overclocking, especially if you increase your voltage. 

How To Overclock

MSI Afterburner

The first things youll need is a program to adjust GPU clocks. AMD offers Overdrive in the Catalyst Control Center, and many manufacturers offer their own tweaking programs, like Sapphire Trixx, MSI Afterburner, and EVGA Precision. Personally, I use Afterburner - with my Sapphire cards. It is probably the best all around program, and the only reason not to use it is if you have non-reference, non-MSI cards and want to adjust the voltage.

GPU-Z Sensors

You will also want to download something to monitor your cards. Afterburner takes care of this, but you should also consider getting GPU-Z because it monitors more than just the core temperature. In most cases, you will also be able to see your VRAM and VRM temperatures as well. Ideally your temps wont surpass 80-90C at the absolute most. For my 5850s, I found I would get a hard system crash or lockup when VRM or VRAM hit around 120C, although my core temperature was still in an acceptable area - so keep in mind that you should check on those temps too.

Before you start, make sure that you do NOT have "apply overclock at startup" selected!

The basics of GPU overclocking are very similar to CPU overclocking. Personally, I recommend starting with Memory clock because it gives nice gains and often isnt affected by voltage - since usually you can only change core voltage. To overclock the memory, I like to start with 50mhz jumps, with 5 minutes of FurMark testing at 4xMSAA at full screen - also, let the cards stay heated up a fair bit rather than giving them a long cool down time between tests. You may want to set up your tests using the benchmark feature. Continue this until you get either a lock up, crash, artifacts, or the screen goes blank. Doing a hard reset on your PC isnt fun, but it shouldnt wreck anything. I usually find that ctrl+alt+del still works and you can reset from there.

FurMark stress test

When running your 5 minute benchmark tests, you will get a score at the end. As you increase the memory speed, you should see an improvement to the score. However, at some point even if you dont get a crash or lockup, you might notice your score either didnt increase, or worse yet, decreased. This is a vital thing to notice. The reason for this, as I understand it, is that GDDR5 memory - that is, the most common memory used for GPUs - is meant to be crash resistant. It does this by being able to resend data that failed the first time due to being unstable. In this way, if you are nearing the point of crashing, leading up to it the VRAM will need to resend data repeatedly, and therefore it will reduce performance compared to every piece of data being sent only once. Therefore, if you notice this occuring, slowly reduce your clocks by 5mhz until you realize the highest score.

Moving on to GPU core overclocking, the process is much the same. You can still start with 50 mhz jumps, but with the testing you should run at 0xMSAA in FurMark. Also try to keep temperatures high throughout the testing phase.

The most common issue of an unstable core is artifacting. This is when pixels essentially get stuck, and youll notice multiple squares on screen that dont sync up with the image. At this point you will want to stop the test and will also have to reboot the PC. You have a choice here, either to reduce the clock or else increase the voltage. For 24/7 overclocks, I highly recommend reducing the clock and finding the highest stable clock on stock voltage. However, if you want to increase the voltage, I suggest doing it in 0.05V increments. Basically just increase the voltage and retest at the same clocks, and repeat until stable. It is also vitally important to watch all your temperatures, because as I mentioned before, its possible that you crash because of heat and not instability.

Extra Info

There are, as always, a few other things to consider. FurMark isnt perfect in determining if your GPU is stable. Ive passed fairly long sessions in FurMark, as well as a few games, before finally having an issue in one specific game. It didnt take long to realize that my GPU OC was to blame, and dropping my memory clock by only 5mhz made it nice and stable from there on out. So, actually playing games will be your final stress test.

If you run crossfire or SLI, there might be issues with instability. Generally it should be ok, but Ive read about issues with crossfire that has to do with the switch between low power and high power, and only occurs when a custom voltage is set. It seems the way around this is to disable ULPS, which you can google for yourself.

Another area of problem is that sometimes after an overclock is applied, the graphics cards wont automatically change to low power state at idle, or else the idle state clocks are higher than they used to be. This is something that is at the mercy of people making the overclock programs, and the only way around this (and other) issues is to manually reflash your GPU BIOS. This is not a recommended practice, but I will just put here that if you have a very stable overclock, it is a handy thing to do because your GPU will essentially think that the overclock settings are its default settings, so it behaves like a totally stock card. There are tools for changing and flashing the BIOS, and for more info check out techpowerup.com.

If you have concerns about your particular brand or model of graphics card, just google your card and key terms like "overclocking" "highest clocks" "stability" to find a variety of sources. I always advise learning as much as you can before doing something you dont quite understand, and causing damage.

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An Inflated Sense of Risk

I was at the Berkeley alumni panel organized by Dan Wallach a week or so back, and was very fortunate to be seated next to Jon Blow when someone asked if joining a startup, or doing an indie game was risky. Jon immediately went into this rant about how in this modern world, we have an inflated sense of risk: almost all risk has been taken out of society by civilization --- if you startup fails, you dont go to debtors prison, and you are not at risk of getting eaten by tigers or wolves. As a result, we have people who inflate the little risks in life to a ridiculous amount, to the point of not letting kids walk or bike to school because they might get abducted by strangers!

This came to me again recently when someone asked me for advice. He was about to leave his current giant employer for another employer that was much smaller, but was well on its way to being public. From a business point of view, neither company had significant risk. Yet he wavered. "I have two pre-school kids, and I cant afford to take the risk of even joining a high quality startup such as OSMeta."

Heres the deal. If you join a smaller company from a giant firm or even a tiny startup, and then face new challenges, overcome them, and work with really smart people, theres zero chance that if everything goes belly up over the next few years the giant corporation will not hire you. Zero. By contrast, if you do spend your time at a large corporation with reduced risk and perhaps a fat package that comes to you every year no matter what happens, would you push yourself as hard? (Some people might: if youre one of them, this does not apply to you, and youre probably a super star at the large corporation anyway and are not reading this) And if you dont manage to push yourself as hard and giant corporation falls onto bad times, whats going to happen? You could be pushed out of your job (by better politicians, perhaps), and now youre actually less employable than if youd taken the small company "higher risk" job.

So what I think is that people inflate the risk of going solo, doing the startup thing, or even joining a smaller firm, and forget the risk of staying stagnant at a large corporation where you might not get a chance to stretch, and the political game is far more vicious as its practiced by many people who have nothing better to do all day precisely because the business faces effectively no risk. Startups eliminate such behavior because if you dont pull your weight, its very obvious and the business is at risk, and good startups fire such people.

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Review Happy Money

I wanted to like Happy Money. As Meng once said to me, "Those who say that money cant buy happiness dont know where to shop." And indeed, the premise of the book is sound: there are many things that most people do with their money that buys a lot of frustration instead of happiness, and theyre well documented in literature:

• Buying a bigger house doesnt buy you happiness, but buying a shorter commute (one you can walk to or bike to) does.
• Buying experiences like great vacations is far better than buying the latest Apple/Android/Lenovo product. You get used to your faster computer quickly, but youll always remember the great experiences you had on your vacation.
• Whenever possible trade money for time, so that you can have more time for yourself. This is hard because if youre paid more, you value your free time even more, so its difficult to buy enough free time. House-cleaning services and yard work services are examples of such valuable money/time trade-offs.
• Spending money on other people is better than spending money on yourself.

There. Ive probably given you the gist of the book. My wife asked me if I learned anything new in the book that I didnt already know from reading other happiness studies.

• The book claims that interacting with children is the highlight of many peoples days. This contradicts many other studies Ive read where interacting with their children usually leaves parents unhappy. In fact, most studies Ive read indicate that having children is a surefire way to destroy your happiness.
• The book claims that paying for something first and then enjoying it later gives you the feeling that what youre enjoying is "free", which is nice. I personally find myself skeptical of this experience.
• Apparently, even bad vacations are better expenditures than buying a bigger house. But there are no studies on how small a house you can have before having a bigger house makes you happier just because youre not hitting something every time you turn around.

The book is extremely short. If youre not careful youll blow through it in a few hours. I do recommend the content in the book if youve not been exposed to it before, but Id hesitate to spend full price on the book: check it out from the library instead.

Recommended.

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upgrade tp link mr3020 to the latest firmware

-    download the latest firmware from http://www.tp-link.com/en/support/download/?model=TL-MR3020&version=V1#tbl_j 

first plug an ethernet cable to pc and the tp-link mr3020. we use cable because its more reliable than wireless. because upgrade firmware need stability. make sure pc power keep on while doing these action. because if the main process got interupted while updating firmware, it can brick the hardware it self. so using an ups is recommended.

change the ip of your lan. in windows 7 it can be done from start > control panel > network and internet > network and sharing center > adapter setting > local area network > properties > tcp ip v4 and change the ip from 192.168.1.1-X      (X= any number from 1-253)

now open your browser and point it to ip 192.168.0.254 you will be prompted by a box asking for login

the default user is admin and password admin


on left side bar u can find system tool > firmware upgrade. choose the firmware that we already download.
when asked are you sure bla bla bla... just press ok.. then wait until the router reboot. after that check the status bar.

voila... the router just upgraded well. you can see the version changed after we flash the new firmware. thats it

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What Is Retina Display

Retina Display, stylized by Apple as Retina display, is a brand name used by Apple for liquid crystal displays that, according to Apple, have a high enough pixel density that the human eye is unable to notice pixelation at a typical viewing distance. The term is used for several Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, MacBook Pro, iPad Mini, and iPad Air. Because the typical viewing distance is different, depending on each devices use, the pixels per inch claimed to be of Retina quality can differ, depending on the size of the display, with higher PPI for smaller displays and lower PPI for larger displays: 326 PPI for the smallest devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad Mini (2nd generation)), 264 PPI for mid-sized devices (iPad, including iPad Air), and 220 PPI for larger devices (MacBook Pro). When an Apple product has a Retina Display, each user interface widget is doubled in width and height to compensate for the smaller pixels.

Apple calls this mode HiDPI mode. Apple has applied to register the term "Retina" as a trademark in regard to computers and mobile devices with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, and in Jamaica. On November 27, 2012 the US Patent and Trademark office approved Apples application and "Retina" is now a registered trademark for computer equipment.

Technical definition

When introducing the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said the magic number for a Retina Display is about 300 PPI for a device held 10 to 12 inches from the eye. One way of expressing this as a unit is pixels-per-degree (PPD) which takes into account both the screen resolution and the distance from which the device is viewed. Based on Jobs magic number of 300, the threshold for a Retina Display starts at a PPD value of 53. 53 PPD means that a tall skinny triangle with a height equal to the viewing distance and a top angle of one degree will have a base on the devices screen that covers 53 pixels. Any displays viewing quality (from phone displays to huge projectors) can be described with this size-independent universal parameter. Note that the PPD parameter is not an intrinsic parameter of the display itself, unlike absolute pixel resolution (e.g. 1024×800 pixels) or relative pixel density (e.g. 72 PPI), but is dependent on the distance between the display and the eye of the person (or lens of the device) viewing the display; moving the eye closer to the display reduces the PPD, and moving away from it increases the PPD in proportion to the distance.

It can be calculated by multiplying the distance to the screen times the resolution of the screen in pixels per unit length times twice the Tan of π divided by 360 (equal to half a degree in radians). Remember to use units, whether imperial or metric, consistently in applying this formula. If the distance to the screen is measured in inches, then the resolution of the screen must be in PPI. If the distance to the screen is measured in centimetres, the resolution of the screen must be in PPC. Two times the Tan of π divided by 360 can also be approximated with π divided by 180 (= 0.01745).

In practice, thus far Apple has converted a devices display to Retina by doubling the number of pixels in each direction, quadrupling the total resolution. This increase, combined with the size-doubling of the user interface, creates a sharper interface at the same physical dimensions.

Criticism

Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, has challenged Apples claim. He says that the physiology of the human retina is such that there must be at least 477 pixels per inch in a pixelated display for the pixels to resolve (become imperceptible to the human eye) at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm). The astronomer and science blogger Phil Plait notes, however, that, "if you have [better than 20/20] eyesight, then at one foot away the iPhone 4Ss pixels are resolved. The picture will look pixelated. If you have average eyesight [20/20 vision], the picture will look just fine... So in my opinion, what Jobs said was fine. Soneira, while technically correct, was being picky."

Shortly after Soneiras challenge, the Boys of Tech podcast published their own analysis and concluded that Soneiras claim was invalid and that Jobs claim was correct. This was primarily because Soneira misinterpreted the manner in which the acuity of the human eye can be tested. The retinal neuroscientist Bryan Jones offers a similar analysis of more detail and comes to a similar conclusion: "Id find Apple’s claims stand up to what the human eye can perceive."

Apple fan website CultOfMac stated that the resolution the human eye can discern at 12 inches is 900 PPI, concluding "Apple’s Retina Displays are only about 33% of the way there". On the topic of 20/20 vision, they said "most research suggests that normal vision is actually much better than 20/20. In fact, people with normal vision usually won’t see their eyesight degrade to 20/20 until they are 60 or 70 years of age" (confirmed by vision testing experts Precision Vision). CultOfMac also noted that people do not always view displays at a constant distance, and will sometimes move closer, at which point the display could no longer be classed as Retina.

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Review The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011

While I dont usually pick up anthologies, when the Kindle had The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 as a gold box deal for $1.99, I figured Id be willing to take the risk.

I started the book and was blown away by how good it is. If youre a fan of science writing for the lay man, you should really stop reading and buy it now, even at the full price at $7.99.

The big draws to this book are the big names like Atul Gawande, Stephen Hawking and Oliver Sacks. But in my reading of all the essays theres no a single dud in the entire book. Gawandes Letting Go is easily worth the price of admission all by itself, and if it encourages you to have a discussion with your family about what should go into the Advanced Health Directive, youll be glad you read the book/article.

Other articles cover the nature of invasive species into the Americas (Asian Carp is a huge problem, believe it or not). Theres one on fermentation and the new food movement. Others cover brain imagery, cancer treatments, and the existence of organic molecules in the universe. Theres one about the shooting of songbirds in Europe. Theres of course, the famous article about Gay Albatrosses. The last article will probably make you never want to visit SeaWorld again.

Every article was entertaining, and none of them was a waste of time. I felt like I learned something from every article. This could easily be one of the best books Ive read this year. While you could plausibly hunt down every article and read it for free on the internet, many of them are long form and benefit from reading on the Kindle or in paperback format rather than on the web.

Highly Recommended. Buy it now!

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Xara Photo Graphic Designer 6

Publisher: Xara
Version: 6

Pros: It has a wealth of professional features, yet this software is still very easy to use.

Cons: Photo & Graphic Designer could perhaps have a few more support options.

The Verdict: With many features and an easy learning curve, this is valuable drawing software.

Hotfile
Part1  Part2  Part3  Part4

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer Review

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is an excellent illustrator, one that certainly deserves the title of TopTen Gold Award winner in drawing software. Honestly, Photo & Graphic Designer has all the expert tools and features to compete with professional, premium illustrator software, but it is accessible to amateur and freelance artists because of its reasonable price. Photo & Graphic Designer is an all-in-one application, meaning it edits photos and puts pages into layouts in addition to being a fully functional drawing program. Because of its impressive value, Photo & Graphic Designer is ideal for both the home and the office.

Features:

Professionals and home users alike can use this drawing software and not feel that they are being sold short. Photo & Graphic Designer contains a full range of illustration features. In fact, Xara was the creator of many of the traditional features included in drawing software, including anti-aliasing and transparency. Xara also boasts that their drawing software is the fastest on the market.

One feature in Designer that we particularly enjoyed was the 3D Extrude Tool. Just by clicking a button on the tool bar and dragging the mouse on a 2D object, Photo & Graphic Designer will create realistic 3D objects with the snazziest effects we’ve seen thus far in drawing software. The 3D objects can be twirled and rotated so users can see every plane and angle of the objects. What makes this so impressive is that the light source, or the shading on each side of the object, changes as the user rotates the object. This makes the 3D effect look extremely convincing. Users can also adjust the widths and height of the 3D objects with the Extrude Tool.

The contour and bevel functions are some features that are not included in all drawing software. These are tools that give objects the appearance of 3D objects, without actually making them 3D. For example, a beveled edge makes an object look like it is slightly raised up from the rest of the objects. A contour gives an object one or several outlines. These simple tools are included in all professional illustrators, but not in all drawing software applications. Because these features are included in Photo & Graphic Designer, they further suggest that Xara’s drawing software is able to compete with professional graphic design software.

Photo & Graphic Designer has many unique features that are not included in other drawing software, and this application also has many of the same features as other software with one notable difference – the features are often easier to use in Photo & Graphic Designer than in other drawing applications. The gradient tool is a good example of how simple yet powerful Designer’s tools are. With the gradient tool, users create a gradient line that can easily adjust all aspects of a gradient. Users can move the line to adjust the start of the gradient and how gradually or suddenly the colors blend into each other. Users can also drag colors onto the gradient line to adjust the colors in the gradient fill. Many other drawing applications do not have gradients that are as simple to use as Xara’s drawing software; many of Photo & Graphic Designer’s tools are superior because of their simplicity.

Another plus of using Photo & Graphic Designer is the attractive and creative brush strokes. Designer has easily adjustable brushes that mimic the texture of marker, crayon, felt tip, airbrush, chalk and other natural drawing utensils. These brushstrokes allow users to produce unique and professional-looking results.

File Compatibility:

This drawing software can import and export a wide range of files types, so users don’t have to struggle to work with the files. Potential buyers should be aware that Photo & Graphic Designer does not support AutoCAD files. The drawing software also does not export RAW or import SVG file formats. Besides these shortcomings, Xara supports most file formats.

Ease of Use:
Photo & Graphic Designer is extremely easy to use. Most drawing software has a sharp learning curve, so it may take months for users to have full command of their software, but not Photo & Graphic Designer. This drawing software is intuitive to use from the start.

The developers at Xara specifically integrated many functions that would make the interface easy to navigate. One of these features is the ability to drag and drop colors onto objects and lines. If that’s too easy for you, you can always right click to change a fill color or left click to change the stroke color of a shape.

Another command that is extremely helpful is the unlimited undoes. Normally when you are working on a project and you want to undo the changes you have made, there is a limited number of changes the drawing software can undo. Because you cannot undo your changes anymore, they have become permanent and you have to spend time reconstructing what you had already done. If this has ever happened to you, you will appreciate the unlimited undo function on Photo & Graphic Designer.

The direct action tools are another great feature that makes this drawing software easy to use. Direct action tools allow you to see the changes you are making to an object as you make them. For example, users can open the color dialog box to adjust the color of an object. As the user changes the color, they will immediately see the color on the object and have the ability to make the exact changes they want. Without direct action tools, users have to agree to make a change and continually return to an appearance panel or color editor until they get it right. The direct action tools take the guesswork out of your work.

Help & Support:

One of the great advantages of using Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is the abundance of video tutorials that are available to help new users learn to use this drawing software. On Xara’s website, there are 18 categories of video tutorials, with each topic containing 3-15 videos. These tutorials are succinct and precise, teaching users exactly what they need to know to navigate and use

Photo & Graphic Designer. The Photo & Graphic Designer CD also comes with over 90 video tutorials. With all these resources, Xara makes it easy for users to gain a full understanding of the power and range of features in Photo & Graphic Designer.

Photo & Graphic Designer also features a tip of the day that teaches users a new trick every day to familiarize them with the drawing software. In addition to the video tutorials and the tip of the day, Xara also provides links to the Xara support site where they’ll find learning resources and an online forum.

Xara provides further technical support through FAQs, email support, online forums and digital manuals.

Summary:

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer deserves TopTen Gold Award in every aspect. This drawing software has superior features that are comparable to features included in the software used by professionals, and it also has traditional features that are easier to use than the features of other drawing applications. Xara provides excellent support and learning resources to help users understand their software. Photo & Graphic Designer also has excellent file compatibility that allows users to import and export most file formats. Overall, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer has all the benefits of a professional illustrator, but you don’t have to be a professional to enjoy this excellent software.

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How to Boost Your Wireless Signal

In general, speed and range issues all can be lumped together as performance issues. You want both your speed and range to be as robust as possible. There are several factors that can impact both aspects of performance.

Distance can certainly impede performance. You may have a room in your home or office that is simply too far from your wireless router. Even the way your home or office is structured could be a culprit in poor wireless performance. If the signals have to bounce around too many corners to reach your wireless devices, that can cause problems (although a technology in newer, premium routers called beamforming, can help direct a routers signal to wireless clients).

Interference with the signal can be big factor in performance, too. If you live in an apartment building, your home might be inundated with signals from everyone elses routers. Maybe structural interference is the culprit. If your furnace, washing machine, and dryer are all between your router and your laptop, that doesnt help.

Maybe its the software youre using. Routers need software updates just like everything else - and sometimes the firmware they initially ship with is improved with a later-released update.

These are just a few of the possible reasons your connection might be poor (or nonexistent). Fortunately, there are many ways to extend your wireless signal, and most of them simply involve a bit of tweaking to your wireless network or adding some affordable components. Well walk you through ten of the most useful fixes for your connectivity woes.

Read the next 10 tips to extend your Wi-Fi signal. Some of the suggestions require no additional hardware or software to purchase, while others may require a small or larger investment, depending on the particular performance problem youre experiencing.

1. Change the channel

Wi-Fi routers operate on specific channels. When you set up a typical router, it usually chooses a certain channel by default. Some routers choose the least-crowded channel, but yours may not have. Check for yourself which Wi-Fi channel is the least crowded to boost the routers performance, perhaps boosting signal range. A good, free tool to use is inSSIDer. Dont be put off by the graphs and excess information. What you want to focus on is the column "Channel." See how many routers in this area are on channel 6 in the slide above? If your router is on the same channel, you want to switch it to a less-crowded one, like 4 or 1. You can change the channel of your router by going into its interface. All routers have different ways to access the interface, so check with your manufacturer.

2. Update router firmware

Updating router firmware is often overlooked by home users. Business networking devices usually display some sort of notification when newer software for the device is available for download. Consumer products such as home wireless routers, especially older routers, dont always offer this notification. Check often for firmware updates for your router. There is typically a section in the routers interface for upgrading the firmware. However, you often have to go the router manufacturers website and search for the firmware (most vendor make searching for firmware pretty easy) and then upload it through the routers interface. Theres often accompanying release notes that tell you what the firmware helps to fix; often the fixes are for connectivity problems.

3. Update adapter firmware

Just like routers, network adapters on PCs and laptops also are subject to firmware updates. Remember, good wireless range and performance is dictated not just by the router but by the network adapter on clients (as well as other factors, but these are the two biggies.) Most laptops have on-board adapters. Go into your Network settings to find the name of the adapter (via Control Panel in Windows OS) and then to that adapters manufacturers site to make sure you have the latest firmware.

4. Change position

Do you have your wireless router nestled up against your broadband modem tucked away in your entertainment center in your basement thats converted into the family den? Move it, if you have range issues. You dont have to have the router in close proximity to your modem. Ideally, a Wi-Fi router should be in a central location. You can purchase custom length Ethernet Cat 5 cable from Best Buy or any place that services computers (although if you do that, this is technically no longer a free options) if you need more flexibility in centrally positioning the router.

5. DD-WRT

For the adventurous; DD-WRT is open-source software for routers. Its known to ramp up router performance and extend the feature set beyond what typically comes with most routers. Not every router supports it, but the number of routers that are supported keeps growing. Warning; installing DD-WRT may quite possibly invalidate your routers warranty. Many manufacturers will not help you troubleshoot router issues once you have DD-WRT on them. Hence, this is not a recommended option for routers under warranty or in a business network. There are also no guarantees that DD-WRT upgrades wont negatively affect a router. However, many users are finding it a free way to trick-out their routers. So, if you have an older, spare router laying around, or want to take the plunge to see if DD-WRT firmware helps your range issues on a newer router, check if its supported on the DD-WRT site. Also note, its not easy to remove DD-WRT from some routers without doing a lot research.

6. Set up a second router as an access point or repeater

You can set up just about any router as a wireless access point. To do so, you need to connect the second routers LAN port to the primary routers LAN port. On the second router, you will want to give it the same addressing information as the primary router. For example, if you primary routers IP address is 192.168.2.1 and its netmask is 255.255.255.0; then you could make the second routers IP 192.168.2.2 and use the same netmask. Its also important that you assign the same SSID and security on the second router and turn DHCP off on the second one as well.

Newer routers make this process easier. If you have a second router thats only about a year old, most of them can be set to operate in "access point" or repeater mode. Configuring is as simple as clicking a button. Check with your routers manufacturer or documentation. You can also just purchase a dedicated access point such as Linksys By Ciscos Wireless-N Access Point with Dual Band WAP610N. This is a more expensive option, but will likely save you some network configuration headaches. Best bet, if you go this route; use an access point from the same manufacturer of your router.

7. Antennas

Newer 802.11n Wi-Fi routers are increasingly coming with internal antennas. There are some that still have or support external ones, and these antennas can often be upgraded. Consider a hi-gain antenna, which you can position so that the Wi-Fi signal goes in the direction you want. Hawking Technology offers the HAI15SC Hi-Gain Wireless Corner Antenna. Though, we have yet to test it; Hawking claims it boosts wireless signal strength from a standard 2dBi to 15dBi. Antennas like these can attach to most routers that have external antennas connectors. Hi-gain or "booster" antennas range in pricing from $40 to $100 dollars.

8. Repeaters/Extenders

Most major wireless networking vendors offer devices that act as repeaters or wireless extenders. While they can extend a Wi-Fi signal, they can be tricky to setup, can cause interference with the signal and can be expensive. A good repeater or extender can you set you back almost $200.

9. New Router/Adapters

How about getting new routers and adapters, altogether? Upgrading your home network to 802.11n and using the 5 GHz band should give noticeable performance improvement. 2.4 GHz is said to actually have greater range than the 5 GHz band, but that only becomes apparent when supplying wireless coverage to large areas such as college campuses or municipalities. In a number of our router testing, for smaller areas, like in a typical home network, 802.11n and the 5 Ghz band kept better throughout than 2.4 GHz with most routers, at greater distances. Its a more expensive option, but if wireless connectivity is crucial for you, its a plausible one. If you go with an 802.11n router, you will of course, need to update client adapters that support "N" as well. USB-based 802.11 N adapters are convenient ways to update a laptop that may have an older on-board adapter.

10. Single Vendor Solution

Vendors are quick to say that their product will work with other vendors products. But it just makes sense: Cisco network adapters will work better with Cisco routers; Belkin adapters work optimally with Belkin routers and etc. If possible, try to limit your network devices to one vendor; that means not only your router or adapter, but antennas, repeaters and access points.

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Lenovo Ideapad U300S Laptop review

A solid performer but doesn’t stand out from the crowd

Despite the Lenovo IdeaPad U300S being a fantastic ultraportable laptop - with a comfortable keyboard, lightweight design and decent amount of power - it does little to stand out from rivals like the Asus Zenbook. That said, the Lenovos brushed metal body feels solid, there’s little flex and there are contours and lines which add detail, making it more interesting than the myriad Apple MacBook Air clones weve seen elsewhere.

An Intel Core i5 processor is under the hood, which we were a bit disappointed to find when other manufacturers haw added Intel Core i7 processors into a smaller chassis. There’s also 4GB of RAM and a small but fast 128GB SSD drive.

The less powerful Intel Core i5 processor showed through in our lab tests and the 7244 score in Cinebench is on the low side, when compared with the Asus Zenbook UX31 and Acer Aspire S3. These arc much more powerful systems, and the Lenovo has little in reply to make it a real winner.

The battery life made up for this somewhat with 231 minutes of use in our harsh lab tests. This translates to around five hours of web surfing and emailing, which equates to a good day on the move, but nowhere near the seven hours quoted by Lenovo on their marketing literature. However, this still beats much of the competition in this group test. The Lenovo features a 13.6-inch screen, and in a nod to true portability, there’s a matt screen with a coating to help stop reflections in direct sunlight. Matt screens tend to polarise opinion: some complain they make the panel dull and lifeless; others love the ability to work outside, and near windows, that you don’t get with a glossy screen.

Both of these statements are true: with this screen the Lenovo is unsuitable for those who want to enjoy movies and pictures, but its still a great choice for people who want to work on the move.

Frustrating to use

Two of the major complaints about Ultrabooks arc poor, uncomfortable keyboards and single button track pads that are frustrating to use. The Lenovo is little better than most. On the plus side, the keys are as comfortable and natural to use as any Ultrabook. Theyre well cushioned, well-spaced, with isolation style keys jutting through the aluminium chassis. However, Lenovo has made the Enter and Backspace keys very small, with the Home, End and Delete keys to the for right. These meant mistakes were common, and it took us a while to get used to the keyboard. The trackpad, however, is terrible and often clicking and navigating led to chaotic moments, where clicks were misregistered.

In short, the Lenovo IdeaFad U300S is a good ultraportable laptop, but doesnt offer more than its direct competition on test here. Battery life is average, performance is mediocre, despite being thicker and heavier than any other Ultrabook, and the keyboard and trackpad are still awkward to use.

The matt screen will make this Ultrabook attractive for business buyers, but the lack of a VGA and Ethernet connection found on its Toshiba rival mean that many will inevitably overlook this laptop.

Whats It Best For
WEB, MAIL AND PHOTO	Yes
Light and Portable	Yes
HD Movies and TV	No
Games and Editing	No

Details
Part Code	M6845UK
Review Date	24 Nov 2012
Price ex VAT	£666
Price inc VAT	£799
Overall rating
Features & Design
Value for Money
Performance

Physical specifications
Dimensions	324 x 216 x 18mm (WDH)
Weight	1.320kg
Travelling weight	1.7kg

Processor and memory
Processor	Intel Core i5-2467M
RAM capacity	4.00GB
Memory type	DDR3

Screen and video
Screen size	13.3in
Resolution screen horizontal	1,366
Resolution screen vertical	768
Resolution	1366 x 768
Graphics chipset	Intel HD Graphics 3000
HDMI outputs	1

Drives
Capacity	128GB
Battery capacity	3,400mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT	£0

Networking
802.11a support
802.11b support
802.11g support
802.11 draft-n support
Integrated 3G adapter
Bluetooth support

Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switch
Wireless key-combination switch
USB ports (downstream)	2
3.5mm audio jacks	1
SD card reader
Memory Stick reader
MMC (multimedia card) reader
Smart Media reader
Compact Flash reader
xD-card reader
Pointing device type	Touchpad
Hardware volume control?
Integrated microphone?
Integrated webcam?
Camera megapixel rating	1.3mp
Fingerprint reader

Operating system and software
Operating system	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
OS family	Windows 7
Recovery method	Partition

Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use	7hr 7min
Overall Real World Benchmark score	0.56

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