It isn’t often that Mother Nature gives us a tip or advice on technology. Afterall, she is a nature-loving person and this is probably against her beliefs. Mother Nature is a kind soul and doesn’t want to see us tearing up our expensive computer equipment or big screen televisions either. If we damage our nice electronics we own, we will just throw them away and then they will be laying in a land-fill somewhere and this isn’t good for the environment. To help keep the environment good and in hopes of saving some of the nature we have left, she has agreed to give out some advice that will help us all.

Mother Nature wants us to get an affordable tech gadget that can protect us from the hundreds, if not thousands, we have spent on TV’s, radios, computers, and other expensive electronic equipment. If your guess was a surge protector; then you would be right! I guess the picture gave it away, huh?

Mother Nature suggests the Tripp 8 Outlet Surge Protector and this will give us a variety of things we can plug-in to it. A surge protector like this is perfect for the area that your computer, printer, and fax machine might be located near. You can plug all of those things in and be protected from the bad weather Mother Nature likes to throw our way sometimes. Lightning is not good for any of our tech gadgets and the ones we have to plug-up to work; then we certainly want protection. The money spent on a good surge protector is a great investment in my opinion and obviously Mother Nature agrees with me too.

I would avoid the ones that cost like 10 bucks and get one that can handle a big surge of electricity. There are a few made by Tripp that you can find at Buy.com and I think they had some other surge protectors on sale that were from other manufactures. All the ones I saw on their website looked like good ones. I didn’t see any of the cheaply made ones that work more like a drop cord than a surge protector. I prefer the surge protectors that offer the phone line connection as well as the standard plug-ins. It’s not likely that a surge of electricity will run through the phone line that can be enough to damage your computer but it does happen. I hope everyone is taking notes and remembers this advice Mother Nature is giving us. It just takes a split second to damage our tech goods permanently and we can all avoid this with a good surge protector!

I guess the commercials and all the warnings we see on television about the switch to digital TV can finally take a break, because we no longer have an analog signal. I know June the 12th was our day locally when all TV stations would make the switch. I think some stations and other parts of the country may be a little different than my area, but from what I understand now, everyone is viewing a digital signal or they aren’t viewing anything on their television screens right now. Is your TV not showing a picture right now? If that is the case, you may have to buy a converter box or make the switch to Direct TV Satellite.

Your local cable company will have the digital signal already in place. For those of you that are Direct TV customers, you should be fine with the new digital signal too. The people that aren’t using satellite or cable will now be forced to make the switch or there is converter boxes that can help make the transition to digital television. They are a lot of people living in rural areas that were still using an antenna to get their TV signal and it’s no longer possible to do this. I’m sure many of these folks are unhappy and it does seem a little unfair to them.

I do love the programming that is available on satellite TV and if you are in the market for an upgrade, I would suggest going with the satellite dish. Satellite television is much better than what it use to be. You don’t need the 8 foot dish in your yard anymore and the actual dish is much smaller. It’s just a little bigger than a large pizza and doesn’t take up much room in the yard or on the roof. We did have our dish on the roof, but we decided to move it into the yard, so that trees would not be growing in it’s signal path anytime soon. You rarely lose your signal these days when bad storms move in, but you shouldn’t have your television on when the really bad storms are around anyways. Satellite Directv is better than cable in my opinion, because they offer more channels and the price is cheaper each month. I do hope your TV is currently working, but if you do need to get cable or satellite to start watching TV again, I would go with satellite as my choice.

I doubt there are too many businesses left today that doesn’t use some form of IT (Internet Technology) to conduct daily business. The world of technology has increased so much and helped link companies and even nations closer than ever before. I know good jobs are still in demand for the IT world and this field has a bright future.

The management of any company that wants to make more money or provide better results or numbers for their line-of-work can start with Internet Technology. This is the first place I would look to increase the business and make sure my company is achieving full production levels. It may be hard for some to understand how a custom software program could provide better numbers for their business, but it does work. It just takes the right person or company to build a software program that will allow managers to see what’s going on inside the work-force and what adjustments need to be made. Our computers can tell us so many things if we teach them how and the businesses that do this the best now, will be the ones that are still around tomorrow.

I’m not sure how big astronomers thought black holes were before but the new estimates blow the mind to think of how big these black holes really are. In terms of space travel this black hole is pretty close to us, but would still be impossible to travel to in a lifetime; considering the speeds in which we normally can travel up to. I have always heard that our planet Earth is much smaller than our closest star; which is our sun or what we consider the center of our galaxy. I have also heard that a good comparison would be like a BB (used in a bb gun) is the size of the Earth and the sun would be like a basketball and this would be a close scale of how much larger the sun is than the Earth. Now we know how big our planet is and the sun is much larger than the world we know.

Now if you try to describe the correct scale of size of our sun to this black hole that is being talked about today, I’m not really sure what you would use for a comparison. That’s because the new size estimates believe that the mass of the black hole is about 6.4 billion times larger than the mass of the sun! Now that is really big and our minds just can’t comprehend how big that really is. I’m not sure how close I can do on this, but I believe it would take about 6.4 billion basketballs to cover the entire land surface of the 48 continental U.S. states. If that number was correct, then you have to remember that our planet is like a BB to the sun and the scale might be the Earth compared to a BB or perhaps the size of a grape, if you tried to compare this black hole with the size of our own planet. How many grapes do you think it would take to cover the Earth? That is my guess to how many Earths it would take to have the same size of mass as this black hole. It really does boggle the mind and I’m not really sure how close my scale really would be and how anyone could figure out an accurate scale. It does sound scary that something this large is like a giant magnet in space and forcing everything to it and crushing it down as it does. These new findings will leave scientists, astronomers, and everyone else in the scientific community with better information on how things actually work in outer space.

These size estimates are for the black hole known as M87 and it may be the closest black hole to our solar system. We might have a black hole in our own galaxy or have others that are closer. We are close to this black hole in terms of space travel, but nothing to worry about yet. The experts do estimate that M87 is about 50 million light-years away, so we are a very long ways in our own knowledge of distance between two points.

A new security feature that is gaining fast acceptance is the keyless lock. This is the process of using a fingerprint to gain access to a secured location and no key is needed. This is a great way to really lock up the things we treasure the most and we can relax a lot better knowing we have the technology of the keyless lock system working on our side. Criminals like to break into easy locations and places they have easy access to. If you have an area that is being protected by this new security method of no keys; than it’s less likely that you will be chosen as the next crime target. The only way to gain entrance is by submitting a fingerprint that allows entry and it’s much harder to steal your finger than a extra house key you may have laying around. This is the modern way of keeping our valuables safe.

The keyless lock is really great for the kids. No longer do they have to worry about losing a key. Parents won’t have to bother making sure they keep up with their keys when they have to enter secured locations on their own. This new security system will store all the fingerprints that are allowed access and no more keys will be necessary. You also have the ability to submit new fingerprints that will be valid for a specific time frame and this is great when you have relatives or friends that you expect to visit in the near future. Throw away the locks that require keys and start using a system that only needs your fingerprints to operate. I think a lot of people will be upgrading their security systems to the keyless lock way.

The latest craze right now is the digital photo frames. Have you seen these yet?

If you are searching for one of these modern picture frames and would like to get one for yourself or a friend; you may want to check out Buy.com to see if they have them in stock. This is a hot item and they do go fast, but you can find them for low prices at Buy.com. These are currently on sale right now and if you hurry you can pick one up at a great price.

I see so many things these days that I would have loved to have growing up as a kid. I would have loved a computer and the Internet while growing up and kids today probably couldn’t imagine life without a computer. I have always had a fantasy of having my own robot too. I liked Screech’s robot on the TV series Saved By the Bell. He was a nerd and had the brains to create his own robot and I never had brain power like that. You may not have that brain power either but there is a simple way to get a talking robot for the kids.

Buy.com currently has these Tribot Talking Robots on sale and this would make a nice surprise for the kids. They wouldn’t expect to be getting a talking robot and I’m sure they would love to hear it talk. I would have been the cool kid in the neighborhood, if I owned one of these robots as a kid. Have you ever seen one of these robots before? Today is the first time I have seen one like this and the price is very reasonable. I would have fun watching my twin 4 year old nephews playing with this and I would probably have to buy 2 of them, so they wouldn’t fight over playing with it. I think this is just the first step in the robot industry and I look for lots more to follow. I think robots will be made for adults in the near future to help them with daily tasks and make life easier on us. The robot technology is out there and talking robots is only the first step to the possibilities here.  I look forward to seeing technology produce robots 10 years from now and see where we stand then.

I love having a large computer screen. I don’t like the 15 inch screens that use to be so popular and came with most computers you would buy back then. It seems the 17 inch or larger screens are what most people have these days. I have a 19 inch monitor and I wouldn’t want anything any smaller. I have seen some of those new monitors going to 21 inches in size and I wouldn’t mind owning one of them. An lcd monitor would be something I would like to buy one day for my computer. I think if I do ever break down and get one, I will go with the 21 inch version or larger. If you have the chance to get a large computer screen with your next computer, make sure you do! A bigger computer screen makes things so much easier and I enjoy the 19 inches I currently have.

Ok, so you want to build a computer from scratch? Let me tell you how it’s done. First you need to, oh wait; I don’t have the first clue on how to do this! I am amazed how smart some people are and can build up a new computer by using parts from an old one. I would be lost trying to figure out how to install used cisco routers and switches and where to put this gadget or that gadget. The tech geeks are just too smart sometimes and I think this is why some of them get in trouble. I know consumers get cheated when they buy new computers these days. The fast assembly line and computer companies trying to use the cheapest parts possible have caused new computers to fail. Sometimes these new computers fail right out of the box, but usually you get a year or two down the road (after the warranty has expired) for them to breakdown with you. You have to go see your local computer guy then and he has to replace one of those cheap parts that were installed originally. The people that know how to build their own computers can use the best drivers or install a larger fan to help the computer to stay cool and things like this help theirs last a long time. If you can build a computer from scratch, feel free to quote a price to me. I have a fairly new computer I use now, but I have already had to replace parts on it. I would like to try a computer that someone has built their self and see how much longer it lasts; than the typical new computers you buy at the store.

I had no idea that there was a such thing as a digital tire pressure gauge. I’m always amazed at where technology will take us next and this is one of those times. Just about anything digital is better than the things that wasn’t digital before. I know our clocks and watches are a good example and the way we use to tell time. When the big hand on the clock gets in between two numbers, we have to make a guess on what the time really is and we might be a minute or two off. The thermometers we put in our mouth or use to determine the air temperature was also a guessing process. Now thanks to digital technology we have oral and outdoor thermometers that tell us the exact temperature.

This digital tire pressure gauge is a step up from the way we use to check for air pressure in our cars and trucks. We can now be certain on our automobiles; when we need to determine the air pressure readings in our tires. The digital tire pressure gauge that Buy.com has on Sale is actually a 2 in 1 setup. This gauge will determine air pressure and tread, so this would certainly be something handy to keep in the car. I haven’t had a chance to use a digital gauge that determines air pressure and tread, but I do look forward to giving it a try. This is just 1 of the many items that Buy.com has for their weekly specials. I like to check what’s on sale each week there and a convenient link located under “deals” is where you can see their weekly specials. Just click on that and you will see all sorts of good stuff for really cheap prices!

Ever since it was announced over a year ago that Google would be launching their own cell phone called the G-1 it was thought that the market would never be the same. It was offered as part of new T-Mobile phones that will no doubt help their overall market. With the two top players still battling out having some of the newer technology with brand recognition like Google could help T-Mobile capture new customers. The phone has an intuitive touch screen, operates on the 3G networks, and of course has been optimized to work with Google search and their applications.
When it was announced back in September 2008 it was thought to be the first real rival to Apples iPhone and that has not proven out over the past 6 months. The one unique feature that G-1 does offer is a keyboard along side the touch screen which the iPod does not offer. This will appeal to a different audience that loves to text and want the touch and feel of a keypad while having the cool look and features of touch screen. As of this post we have heard little noise behind the latest entry into the arena and Blackberry has really turned up the heat to bring their competing models to market.

I have been reading various articles on how to optimize your blog for search engines. I have picked up some good tips like, use the Permalink function to include the title and category of your blog, rather than the de-facto numbering that WordPress uses. This makes good sense from a search engine standpoint. There are also a ton of plug ins that are available for WordPress blogs and other, but you should be somewhat technically savvy to use them, and apply them correctly.