Crazy Tech Gifts For Xmas 2012

Crazy Tech Gifts For Xmas 2012 :



#TV Remote Control in a Pillow :

I said these were crazy xmas gifts and this one is no exception! If you buy this remote pillow/cushion you will never have to look for the TV remote control again.

The trickiest thing is to remember to “activate” the pillow when you want to use it, but once you learn to use the buttons in the correct order and point it in the right direction, it’s a very functional remote. A real surprise!

#Turn Your iPad into a Pinball Machine

The app-supported pinball controller for iPad is attached to your iPad adding Flipper buttons and a spring-loaded plunger that make pinball gameplay unbelievably real. Once connected to your Apple device, unlocks five free tables in the wildly popular Pinball HD Collection app.

#LED Sound Activated T Shirt

This shirt is awesome! The sound activation works perfect and is great to wear out to parties or night clubs. It is not easy to wash this t-shirt and probably better to get dry cleaned, however it is a great gimmick and a lot of fun. Well worth the buy.

#Tetris Light

If you are addicted to the simple tetris game you need this cool Tetris Lamp Light. What an excellent Tetris Constructible Light Lamp! Tetris, one of the most popular video games of all time is a deceptively simple yet completely addictive game in which players must fit falling blocks together.

This excellent Tetris Constructible Light Lamp is an amazing light with 7 interlocking pieces, definitely not for young children. The neon magic-cube design is sure to bring fun and style to your desktop. The 7 interlocking tetromino pieces can be stacked in any combination, so you can make it look however you want! The light turns on when the pieces are all stacked together and it turns off when disassembled.

!! Merry X-Mas !!
!! We Love Techno !!

Habitual PC Maintenance Tips

10 Habitual PC Maintenance Tips you must know :


As the old saying goes, the better you treat your tools, the better they will treat you. Your computer, even though you may not think of it on this base a level, is a tool. A very expensive tool that often is one of the most important parts of your life these days, but a tool nonetheless. So the better you treat it, the more maintenance you can provide it with and the better cared for it is on a regular basis, the longer it will last. In theory, at least.

1) Keep All Working Files in One Folder
2) Never Store Personal Files on the Root C: Drive
3) Get Rid Of Old Programs
4) Get a Surge Protector
5) Don’t Download Random Things
6) Update Everything the First Chance You Get
7) Back-Up Critical Files
8) Reboot
9) Clean out Dust
10) Clean Out Your Email

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How To Fix I/O Device Errors On External Hard Drives

How To Fix I/O Device Errors On External Hard Drives :


The Problem With I/O Errors :

The problem with Input/Output (I/O) errors is that they’re generic—the error messages you see are what Windows, Mac, and Linux say when they know there’s a problem but they don’t know exactly what that problem is.

It could be that your USB or eSATA cord is a little bit loose. Or it could be that your external hard drive is knocking on death’s door. That means you’re going to have to do some sleuthing—you can’t just find a blog by somebody who got the same error message and do what he did.


The Easiest Problems To Fix :


Some I/O errors are really easy to fix. Most them have to do with the cords that connect your external hard drive to your computer.

The first thing to check—and you may already have done this—is that all of your cords are connected tightly. Check the connection to your external hard drive and to your computer. If you’re connecting to a USB hub, make sure the cord from the computer to the hub is connected tightly at both the hub and computer ends or—and this is preferred—connect the external hard drive directly to one of the USB ports on your computer, bypassing the hub and any problems it may have.

The next easiest problem to fix is cord crosstalk. The electricity in one set of wires tends to leak into other wires, so when you have two wires close together on your desk, they may be interfering with each other. Interference isn’t a big deal to your mouse or keyboard—Windows just ignores spurious data—but it’s a big deal to your hard drive where Windows assumes the files it opens and saves are accurate.

To check for crosstalk problems, disconnect any unnecessary devices on your computer and move the cords for the necessary devices further away from your external hard drive. You may also want to disable Bluetooth and move your cell phone across the room.

Don’t worry, if you have a crosstalk problem, you can avoid I/O device errors on external hard drives permanently by buying better cables—just look for shielded cables. Good shielded USB cables include dampeners on both ends: these are little cylinders containing magnets near the plugs.

The final cord-related problem requires a friend or an expenditure. It could be that you have a faulty cable. This is especially likely if you just bought your external hard drive or if you tend to abuse your cables by not putting them away properly.

If you have a friend with a similar external hard drive (and the cables aren’t hardwired), borrow his cables. If that’s not an option, buy replacement cables. You should be able to buy short replacement cables for USB and eSATA for less than $5 if you shop around.


Difficult But Fixable Problems :


If you don’t have a cord problem, the chances that you’ll be able to recover from I/O errors decreases rapidly. Since there are two types of hard drives, there are two different sets of solutions.

For magnetic (high capacity) hard drives, I/O errors often start occurring when the ball bearings get worn or bent out of shape. This happens mainly to drives which have been active for more than two years total or drives which have been dropped. If you get I/O errors on a new external hard drive, I recommend you return it immediately—it was probably dropped during shipping or part of a defective lot.

A key sign that your I/O problem is caused by bad ball bearings is clicking or grinding noises inside your external hard drive every time you plug it into your computer.

You can often get a magnetic drive to start working again by shrinking the ball bearings a little bit so they fit back into their regular tracks. How do you shrink an almost microscopic ball bearing inside a hermetically-sealed hard drive? Basic physics: you freeze it—all metals shrink when cooled.

Note that this can be dangerous and there’s a risk that not just your data and your computer will be destroyed but that you’ll be electrically shocked.

Put your magnetic external hard drive in a Zip-Lock bag. Squeeze out the air. Then put that bag inside another Zip-Lock bag and squeeze out that air. Put a rubber band around the drive in the bag to keep new air from leaking in so you don’t give your hard drive freezer burn.

Put the bagged external hard drive in the freezer for at least an hour and preferably overnight. Then get your computer ready to copy files off the drive as fast as possible.

When you’re ready, take the hard drive out of the bag, connect it to your computer, and start copying files. If the hard drive dies in the middle of copying, freeze it again. Hopefully with this technique you can recover all of your important files.

Solid State Drive Recovery :


Solid state drives tend to fail more gracefully than magnetic drives, so you don’t need to explain to your family why you have a hard drive in the freezer.

The main cause of I/O errors on a solid state drive is too many writes. Every time you save a file to a solid state drive, you use up one of the limited rewritable sectors. Early solid state drives had about 10,000 writes; modern drives typically have 100,000 to 1,000,000 writes.

Once the writes are gone, you can no longer write to that sector. You can still write to other sectors, but Windows isn’t smart enough to only write to working sectors, so it gives you the I/O error.

There are two pieces of good news here—one short-term and one long-term. Short-term, you can still copy files off of your solid state external hard drive, so you haven’t lost any data. Long-term, researchers are working on new tools which will allow computers to work around failed solid state sectors so you can start to write files again. But until then, there’s no real way for solid state drives to fix I/O device errors on external hard drives.

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The Facts about DVRs and Energy Consumption

The Facts about DVRs and Energy Consumption :
(An update)


There has been a lot of hype about the energy consumption of DVR units provided by cable and satellite television companies. Sensational headlines scream that DVRs are destroying your budget and melting the glaciers. These are quickly followed by sarcastic rebuttals and disparaging comparisons to Al Gore.

So what is the real deal? How much do these things consume? Are they evil vampires or just the latest thing for silly people to be paranoid about?

1) They’re Like Light Bulbs…

The deal is this: Data shows that set-top boxes consume energy at about the rate of your average incandescent light-bulb, between 30 and 50 watts.

By contrast, articles like the one I’ve cited claim that cable and satellite DVRs use as much power as a refrigerator or a/c unit.

So there’s nothing to it, right? Fridges and a/c units obviously use more power than that.

2) DVRs That Never Shut Off

DVRs use much less energy than refrigerators or a/c units do when their compressors are running. According to a table from GE, a refrigerator/freezer uses about 450W, and a window unit a/c approximately 1000W.

The problem is that unlike these appliances DVRs never turn off. Even when they are “off” they consume nearly as much power as they do when on. By contrast, refrigerators and a/c units do not run their compressors 24 hours a day.

Now, DVRs need be ‘on’ enough to maintain a connection with the service provider and to receive software updates; it would be impractical to have them completely power down when they are not being used.

3) How to Really Compare DVRs with Refrigerators

At 40W, DVRs obviously don’t consume energy nearly as quickly as a fridge (450W) or a/c unit (1000W) when it is running its compressor. But fridges and a/c units turn on and off as regulated by a timer or thermostat, while DVRs are constantly on. (NOTE: The most modern and energy efficient refrigerators have consumption rates below 150W even when the compressor is running, but most homes are not yet equipped with them. )

4) What to Take Away From This?

The alarmists are clearly exaggerating this issue.

But their sarcastic critics are severely underestimating it.

If your concern is your energy bill, it’s probably not that big of a deal. Having a DVR will cost you something on the order of a few tens of dollars per year, depending on your energy rates.

However, if your concern is the economic and environmental effects of the overall energy consumption of millions of consumers, it is a big deal, and improving the efficiency of DVRs is certainly worth promoting.

More importantly, however, neither side has talked about what’s really shocking about all of this: keeping a 40W light bulb burning all the time is like having a second refrigerator in your house!


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