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What Accent Do You Have?

March 2nd, 2013 Comments off

As a blog author and web publisher my accent is obviously not that important, since I spread my thoughts in a written format. Even though my accent might not be that important, I think that some of you would be interested in what way do I speak. Having this in mind, I took the ‘What American Accent Do You Have’ quiz in order to see for myself. The result of the quiz was that I have the Midland accent, which actually is another way of saying that I do not have any specific accent. So, if you are wondering in what way I speak, then try to imagine someone from Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri or maybe someone from Florida or Charleston, as I speak in a similar way they do. You can take the quiz by visiting gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have.

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Is Beta Testing an Excuse for Poor Quality?

May 5th, 2011 Comments off

When it comes to Massive Multiplayer Online Games, it seems that many of them are in the beta stage for an extended period of time. This especially applies to Korean games, as Western games are usually in the beta stage only while the developers work hard on the game. They usually keep the game private in a sense that they only allow a limited amount of testers to participate in the beta tests.

The situation is completely different when we take a look at Korean games. Those games are officially in the beta stages while they allow everybody to play it, and even after they officially launch. This means that many Korean games are getting released even though they are not polished enough. Unfortunately, many Asian games fall into this category. Many observers speculate that the reason behind extending this beta phase is to have an excuse for poor quality of many of those games.

According to gamers, if everyone is allowed to play a game, it should not be considered to be a game in beta. Before a product is released and being sold, the developers should ensure that everyone is satisfied with the overall quality. Gamers will not trust developers that release unpolished games. That is just a simple fact and it is in the best interest of game developers to ensure that all products that they release are polished. If a game is released to the general public, then it does not look very professional if the developers uses an excuse the the game is still in beta.

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Laptop Batteries

May 3rd, 2011 Comments off

One of the nicest features of laptops is the fact that they can run on batteries. That way laptops can be transported anywhere and we can work in front of them even if there is no electricity outlet nearby. Batteries are very convenient, but they might run out quite fast in some circumstances. Here are some tricks that will help you improve the life of your notebook battery:

-Once per month allow your battery to completely discharge and then start recharging it again. Keeping it charged constantly when it is not discharged completely will diminish its capacity.
-Check some comparison websites if you need to buy laptop batteries to get the best deals.
-Watch the room temperature in which your notebook is stored. Do not leave it in a car on a sunny day for extended periods of time. You have to be careful especially in the summer when some days can be exceptionally hot.

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Browser Wars

September 8th, 2010 Comments off

There are three major players when it comes to browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. Both Firefox and Opera have more features and are faster than Internet Explorer, which in the opinion of many users makes them better browsers. With Firefox and Opera gaining popularity, we should ask ourselves a question: how did it happen that Microsoft lost a big portion of the market to these browsers? I believe that the reason was that neither Firefox nor Opera looked like dangerous competition a few years ago. Microsoft was simply overconfident, and did not realize that other browsers could be a threat. I am happy that there is competition in the browser market, as competition ensures that ultimately consumers have access to higher quality products. However, at the moment Internet Explorer is still being used by two-thirds of computer users. Why does it still have such a big market share?

That is because Microsoft has been bundling its Internet Explorer browser with various Windows versions for many years, and as a result most people use Internet Explorer. Does it mean that IE is superior? Not at all. Actually, in various tests it does not perform as well as Firefox or Opera, which are both fast and loaded with features. Unfortunately, there are not many users browsing the Web with Opera, even though it is often considered the best browser on the market. As a matter of fact, most Internet users might not have even heard about Opera. No wonder that some time ago Opera has presented the European Commission with an antitrust complaint over Microsoft�s dominance. It was requested that Microsoft be forced to unbundle its browser from Windows and this way allow other browsers to compete with IE.

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Google Advanced Search

September 7th, 2010 Comments off

If you are tired of remembering all of the commands like +, ��, -, etc. that you have to apply in Google searches, you can avoid using them by taking advantage of advanced search. The advanced search is especially helpful for those who are looking for something specific, and know what they are looking for. Some of the nicest features of advanced Google Search include:

-The possibility to choose the language in which you want to obtain the results. This will limit completely unrelated webpages. It can also help you find websites of any specific language.
-The possibility to specify the type of file in which you want Google to look for information for you. Are you looking for pdf, doc, ps, xls, or swf files? All you have to do is specify that files you are looking for.
-You can also specify that you do not want to see pages that contain any of the unwanted words which you can list. This should limit the number of unrelated websites as well.
-And finally, and probably most importantly, the possibility to tell Google Search what you are specifically looking for by filling out various fields. Those include �all these words�, �this exact wording or phrase�, and �one or more of these words�. Of course, there are many other useful options out there. I have just listed those that appealed to me the most.

Overall, search engines are probably the most useful feature of Internet, as they allow you to easily find all of the websites in the world. That is why it pays to learn how to use them effectively. While you may not want to use Advanced Search each time you are looking for something, it can greatly help you in case you are searching for something hard to find otherwise.

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Before You Buy a Printer

August 29th, 2010 Comments off

There are some things worth considering before you buy a printer. As there are many printers available on the market, you might feel overwhelmed with the choice. These are some things you might want to consider before buying a printer:

-Cost of cartridges and toners for this particular printer. That is because prices vary, and it will be a recurring expense.
-Speed, which is usually measured by how many pages per minute it can print.
-DPI (dots per inch) � the higher, the better the quality of printing. Take into account that you may not need to print using very high resolutions.
-Whether it has double sided printing or not.
-Connection type. Make sure it is compatible with your computer. The most popular connection type is USB.
-Warranty and for how long it will last. While it is hard to say how long will a printer last, you can at least carefully read the warranty.
-Check if the printer has the possibility to be accessed by many users from various PCs and devices.
-Printer’s paper holding capacity. The more the better, but a printer having a bigger capacity might cost more.

Remember to not spend a fortune, because eventually printers become outdated anyway.

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Parallel Computing Model

August 28th, 2010 Comments off

Many computers are being sold with either dual cores or quad cores. What it means is that many computers have either two or four processors. The problem that we are facing is that they are not being used effectively. Most people who have a quad core processor are probably not aware that the potential of their processor is not being fulfilled. That is because computers are not yet designed to effectively use the power of multiple processors. Let us hope that this might change as Stanford University along with AMD, NVIDIA, IBM, Intel, and HP are focusing their resources on developing new hardware-independent methods of completing parallel computing tasks. If methods that are more efficient were developed, then all of us who have processors with multiple cores would greatly benefit from it. It seems that currently many programs do not fully utilize dual and quad cores. Let us hope that this will change.

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Hacked Microprocessors

August 26th, 2010 Comments off

Generally speaking, hackers try to take control of a computer by infecting a computer with malicious software. However, it appears that there is another way that hackers might want to get access to our computers, namely, by hacking microprocessors. Last year researchers from the University of Illinois altered a computer chip to grant attackers back-door access to a computer. If hackers would decide to do this, detecting what is wrong with the computer would be virtually impossible. The way it technically works is that malicious firmware would be injected into the chip�s memory that would allow the attacker to log into the machine as if he were a legitimate user. For this type of attack to work, the hacker or his associates would have to get physical access to the processor which fortunately is unlikely. However, the possibility still exists, and it is quite scary that any one of us could be using such hardware.

Of course, it is a lot easier to defend from software threats such as viruses and spyware. In order to be well protected you should be simply using a safe browser, and have an up-to-date antivirus and anti-spyware program. Firefox is generally considered to be the safest browser so keep that in mind.

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Search Engine Optimization

August 18th, 2010 Comments off

From my experience I can say that some businesses know how to advertise on the Internet, while some of them do not have any idea how to do it and they never succeed. If, for example, a plastic surgeon offers quality services, it is in his best interest to make sure that he knows ways to advertise on the Net. When I think of Plastic Surgery SEO, I think of many useful tools that every plastic surgery owner can use to create his own website and market it the way it should be advertised to attract as many customers to his practice as it is possible.

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Site Validation

August 5th, 2010 Comments off

Performing website validation ensures that your website is working without any problems or errors. Having a website that has various errors is risky. That is because browsers will try to repair the error, but since there are different browsers, each of them will do it in a different way. This in turn can result in some serious problems with your site. It is a shame that there is no standard when it comes to browsers. Until there will be more cooperation between the companies that create the most popular browsers, such errors will be especially dangerous. Nonetheless, there are tools which can help you spot such mistakes:

1. A good tool for validating your HTML or XHTML is http://validator.w3.org/
2. For validating your CSS use http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
3. To make sure your readers do not have problems receiving feeds use http://feedvalidator.org/
One advice that I would like to give you here is to stick to the most popular browsers like Internet Explorer. I know that other browsers might seem to be more suitable to you, but I think that it is still too early to try to be original and have a browser that nobody else has. Most of the people in the world use Internet Explorer anyway, so try to stick with it as well for as long as it is possible.

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