Techspedia™:  A Compilation Of The Best Sources Of Computer Knowledge At Your Fingertips!

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From Mitsubishi: How 3d works Part 2 [VIDEO]

September 5th, 2011 · 3D Technology, Concepts, Displays, Introductions, Technology, Videos

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From Mitsubishi: How 3d works Part 1 [VIDEO]

September 5th, 2011 · 3D Technology, Displays, Introductions, Technology, Videos

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Tips for Longer-Lasting Laptop Batteries

August 13th, 2011 · Batteries, Computer Products, How To, Tips & Techniques

Hardware budgets are feeling the pinch of our tepid economy, and many companies are making employees use their laptops longer. If you are starting to tell your folks to keep plugging along with their laptops for four or five years instead of just three, you might be running into an unexpected expense: dead laptop batteries.

Well, to be fair, your laptop’s batteries probably aren’t completely dead. But since Lithium Ion batteries tend to lose about 20% of their capacity each year, a typical three-year-old laptop might only get about an hour or so on a charge, which might not even get your folks through an entire meeting. Here are four simple tips to forestall the day that you need to replace those batteries: [Read more →]

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How to Keep Your Computer Running Fast and Smooth

June 15th, 2011 · How To, How To Maintain, Q & A, Technology, Tips & Techniques

1 – Keep Your Desktop and Hard Disk Tidy

Is your computer desktop your virtual dumping group? Storing files and/or lots of shortcuts on your computer’s desktop will demand more memory from the computer. It is ok to keep some commonly used items here (or better yet shortcuts) but don’t make a habit of sprawling out all of your work on the Desktop. If you deal with a lot of documents or files on a regular basis, create a temporary work folder instead of littering the desktop.

If you are big on downloading software, videos or music, be sure to clean up after yourself. Don’t leave setup programs or media files on your hard disk that you are never going to use again; this just wastes your computer’s valuable disk space. Likewise, do not let your recycle bin or various temporary file folders fill up and fill your hard disk. If your disk space gets too low for any of these reasons, performance problems are sure to follow.

To easily empty your recycle bin and various temporary file folders, such as your temporary Internet folder, use Window’s build in “Disk Cleanup” utility. Access the “Disk Cleanup” utility by clicking: [Read more →]

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About Optical Mice

June 9th, 2011 · Electronics Products, Introductions, Optical Mice, Technology

An optical mouse uses a light-emitting diode and photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, unlike wheeled mice which use a set of one rolling ball and two chopper wheels for motion detection.

Early optical Mice

Early optical mice, first demonstrated by two independent inventors in 1980, came in two different varieties:

Some, such as those invented by Steve Kirsch of MIT and Mouse Systems Corporation, used an infrared LED and a four-quadrant infrared sensor to detect grid lines printed with infrared absorbing ink on a special metallic surface. Predictive algorithms in the CPU of the mouse calculated the speed and direction over the grid.

Others, invented by Richard F. Lyon and sold by Xerox, used a 16-pixel visible-light image sensor with integrated motion detection on the same chip and tracked the motion of light dots in a dark field of a printed paper or similar mouse pad. [Read more →]

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How Webcams Work

May 19th, 2011 · Electronics Products, Webcams

The Basic Idea

Webcams, like most things, range from simple to complex. If you understand the essence of a simple Webcam setup, increasing the complexity is only a matter of adding functionality through software, custom code and/or equipment connections.
A simple Webcam setup consists of a digital camera attached to your computer, typically through the USB port. The camera part of the Webcam setup is just a digital camera — there’s really nothing special going on there. The “Webcam” nature of the camera comes with the software. Webcam software “grabs a frame” from the digital camera at a preset interval (for example, the software might grab a still image from the camera once every 30 seconds) and transfers it to another location for viewing. If you’re interested in using your Webcam for streaming video, you’ll want a Webcam system with a high frame rate. Frame rate indicates the number of pictures the software can grab and transfer in one second. For streaming video, you need a minimum rate of at least 15 frames per second (fps), and 30 fps is ideal. To achieve high frame rates, you need a high-speed Internet connection.

Once it captures a frame, the software broadcasts the image over your Internet connection. There are several broadcast methods. Using the most common method, the software turns that image into a JPEG file and uploads it to a Web server using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). You can easily place a JPEG image on any Web page (for information on creating Web pages and adding JPEG images, see How Web Pages Work).

If you don’t have your own Web server, lots of companies offer you a free place to upload your images, saving you the trouble of having to set up and maintain a Web server or a hosted Web site.

This is the simplest possible Webcam. Let’s see what you need to make it happen. [Read more →]

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Understanding LED Technology

May 17th, 2011 · Concepts, Digital TVs, Displays, Electronics Products, Introductions, LED TVs, Technology

LED TV’s and monitors are part of the new High Definition generation. Quite simply, LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology uses individual backlights which in many cases can be tuned on or off in areas to allow for precision control of the lighting emitted from the TV screen or monitor. This differs from traditional backlighting which uses a CCFL (Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) that involves several fluorescent tubes placed horizontally across the screen. The enhanced benefits of LED technology allow for a sleeker screen design plus improved brightness potential, colour reproduction and viewing contrast.

The following guide will help you get to grips with LED technology so you can decide for yourself whether it deserves the must-have hype. [Read more →]

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Understanding Your CD-ROM vs. Your DVD-ROM Drive

May 15th, 2011 · Comparisons, Concepts, Optical Drive, Optical Drive / Media, Technology

The cd-rom is an external support for memory, with superior characteristics than floppy disk drives. Cd-rom stands for Compact Disk Read Only Memory and has special facilities, because of the updated fabrication techniques and the way of organizing and data accessing.

The stocking and data accessing is easily obtained using high speeds optical techniques, that’s why the number of mechanical components is little and the reliability is high.

Cd-rom history began in 1980, when this activity domain started to grow as a result of collaboration between Philips and Sony. Before that, each of them tried to provide a solution, but after the collaboration start, they set the standards of cd-rom (in 1982).

Cd-rom and audio CD are similar, only they have to deal some differences. The base is the same, also the reading principle, the physical format and the capacity. The differences are in the field of informational contents, and also in the hardware that reads and writes. [Read more →]

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