Winter Olympics 2010 Vancouver

A little under a year before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver get rolling, the technology plans are almost approaching the finish line!

(Credit: Vancouver2010.com)

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games will reply on 13 computer systems handling tasks from: streaming the results worldwide to employee management as well as protecting the games from security and technical mishaps.

Atos Origin, the company overseeing the installation of the Games’ IT, says that systems are in place and are being put through 100,000 hours of testing. -CNET News

“Like the athletes, this complex network of systems must work perfectly from the first moment, in front of three billion people. There is no second chance,” Magnus Alvarsson, Atos Origin’s chief integrator for the 2010 Games, said in a statement.

Atos Origin has been in charge of IT at the Olympic Games since 2002 and is responsible for IT configurations again during the London Games in 2012.

The London Games’ chief integrator mentioned to sources that the IT backbone for the 2012 Games would be “trimmed in a drive” for “sustainability.”

-Winston Sih

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How to Extend The Battery Life on The iPhone or iPod Touch

If you're an iPhone user, you may know that the battery life on the iPhone is not the best. The iPhone has a lot of great features such as Push E-Mail, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth and others more. Unfortunately, those are the features that decreases the battery life on the iPhone. I know that you can have a choice to get the Mophie Juice Pack, but it's a hundred dollars. For those who can't get their hands on a Mophie Juice Pack, I did some research and I wanted to share with you how to extend the battery life on the iPhone or the iPod Touch. You don't have to do all of these tips, but they can help a lot. 

Turn off 3G

I know this is kind of pointless if you bought the iPhone 3G just to use the 3G network that AT&T provides. The fact is that 3G loads data much faster but it decreases a lot of battery when in use. Just remember that 3G is limited and it's not everywhere, so it's best to just turn it off.

Decrease the brightness

Bright displays look very stunning and beautiful. The more bright the display, the more the battery it eats up so try to decrease the brightness.

Turn off Push E-Mail

This is something that most power users depend on. Push E-mail allows you to get your E-Mails instantly in seconds. Unfortunately, the phone constantly keeps looking of E-Mails every seconds and that eats up a lot of battery life. I personally get about 10 e-mails a day so I don't need to have all of my e-mails sent to me right away. You can have it set to where the phone checks for new e-mail every 15 minutes, 30 minutes or every hour. To save battery life, fetch less frequently.

Turn off  Location Services

I know that the GPS is a great feature on the iPhone 3G, but if you have it on all the time it may decrease the battery life. So simply just turn it off and turn it back on whenever you need it. 

Turn off Wi-Fi whenever you're not in a Wi-Fi hotspot

I love Wi-Fi and I use this everyday on my iPhone. However if you have Wi-Fi on and you're not on a Wi-Fi hotspot, the phone is constantly looking for other networks and that eats up the battery life. If you travel a lot and you know that there's no hotspots around, it is best to turn it off. This tip really helps for most iPod Touch users as well. 

Turn off the vribrate when the ringer is on

Sometimes when the ringer is on and you get a call, the iPhone rings and vribrates. Vribration uses up a lot of battery, so it's best to turn of the setttings to where it vribrates when it rings. You can have it set to where it only vibrates when the ringer is off, if you want to know how to do that, check out my video below. 

Turn off the EQ

The iPhone is a great iPod, most people like to use the EQ on it. Unfortunately, it eats up a lot of battery life. Personally I don't need the EQ, as long as I can hear my music, then I'm fine. It's best to just turn off the EQ on the iPod Settings.

I hope these tips helped out a lot to some people. Remember you don't have to do all of these tips but they do help.

E-mail: renealanis2012@gmail.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/TechnologysFinest
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TechsFinest

Firefly Jars

FireFlies

 I have always been interested in lights, wether it be on the street flickering, or in the bathroom to keep it light up so i can see and find my toothpaste. Lights created by Thomas Edison which we still use today so we can all do our homework late at night.

 In my case I needed a gift to give to my science teacher Mr. Foley, and poof, out came the firefly jar (coincidentally the day before i gave it too him he was talking about his love for fireflies and how he is angry that they don't live at the left coast [california], while I had been making this for around 3 weeks), the current one that i had been spending my time in was for one of my friends who seemed to love it.

The Hex can be found here 
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=9d...

Better Picture of it on can be viewed here : http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid...

 I used the USBTinyIsp from ladyada.net for the programming of the Attiny45v.

If you have any questions or need a preprogrammed Micro-Controller email me at amarjandu@gmail.com

Love, 

Amar

You're going to get a kick out of this...

While reading the tech section of USA Today, I came across an article that said Microsoft is planning to open their own retail stores. They are trying to compete with Apple who have had such success with all their stores. Microsoft however has not given any details about how many stores they will be opening, what products they will be selling or even when they're opening their stores. When they do, I intend to visit a store to see if Microsoft has really beaten Apple, which I can say right now I know they won't. If you're interesting in reading the actual article, I will post the link.

Article Link- http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-02-12-microsoft-stores-take-on-apple_N.htm

Force quitting annoying programs on Mac OS X

Sometimes, force quitting an annoying program doesn't work on a Mac.  If you're not careful, you could crash your Mac.  With this quick tip from CNET's Wilson Tang, you can see how to properly force quit a program, if your regular force quit doesn't work.

Thanks and please subscribe to my YouTube channel and help me get closer to my 200 subscriber goal!

Thanks,

Winston Sih

Tech Guys Network

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