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Showing posts from September, 2008

Elevator To Heaven!!!! Part 4 (a four part series)

This is the last part of Elevator To Heaven!!!! Hope u all like it. Plz post ur valuable comments on this. Opening the New Frontier The potential global impact of the space elevator is drawing comparisons to another great transportation achievement -- the U.S. transcontinental railroad. Completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, the transcontinental railroad linked the country's east and west coasts for the first time and sped the settlement of the American west. Cross-country travel was reduced from months to days. It also opened new markets and gave rise to whole new industries. By 1893, the United States had five transcontinental railroads. The idea of a space elevator shares many of the same elements as the transcontinental railroad. A space elevator would create a permanent Earth-to-space connection that would never close. While it wouldn't make the trip to space faster, it would make trips to space more frequent and would open up space to a new era of development. Perhaps the

Elevator To Heaven!!!! Part 3 (a four part series)

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Staying in Working Order At a length of 62,000 miles (100,000 km), the space elevator will be vulnerable to many dangers, including weather, space debris and terrorists. As plans move forward on the design of the space elevator, the developers are considering these risks and ways to overcome them. In fact, to make sure there is always an operational space elevator, developers plan to build multiple space elevators. Each one will be cheaper than the previous one. The first space elevator will serve as a platform from which to build additional space elevators. In doing so, developers are ensuring that even if one space elevator encounters problems, the others can continue lifting payloads into space. At a length of 62,000 miles (100,000 km), the space elevator will be vulnerable to many dangers, including weather, space debris and terrorists. As plans move forward on the design of the space elevator, the developers are considering these risks and ways to overcome them. In fact, to make s

Elevator To Heaven!!!! Part 2 (a four part series)

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How Space Elevators Will Work Riding to the Top While the ribbon is still a conceptual component, all of the other pieces of the space elevator can be constructed using known technology, including the robotic lifter, anchor station and power-beaming system. By the time the ribbon is constructed, the other components will be nearly ready for a launch sometime around 2018. Lifter The robotic lifter will use the ribbon to guide its ascent into space. Traction-tread rollers on the lifter would clamp on to the ribbon and pull the ribbon through, enabling the lifter to climb up the elevator. Anchor Station The space elevator will originate from a mobile platform in the equatorial Pacific, which will anchor the ribbon to Earth. Counterweight At the top of the ribbon, there will be a heavy counterweight. Early plans for the space elevator involved capturing an asteroid and using it as a counterweight. However, more recent plans like those of LiftPort and the Institute for Scientific Research (

Elevator To Heaven!!!! Part 1 (a four part series)

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Every one, this is my first part of the Elevator To Heaven!!!! series. Thanks for liking this article. This gave an extra punch to dig more into this.. So let move on When the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on April 12, 1981, from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to begin the first space shuttle mission, the dream of a reusable spacecraft was realized. Since then, NASA has launched more than 100 missions, but the price tag of space missions has changed little. Whether it is the space shuttle or the non-reusable Russian spacecraft, the cost of a launch is approximately $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kg). A new space transportation system being developed could make travel to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) a daily event and transform the global economy. A space elevator made of a carbon nanotubes composite ribbon anchored to an offshore sea platform would stretch to a small counterweight approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 km) into space. Mechanical lifters attached to the ribbon would th

Elevator To Heaven!!!!

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Hi All,, To continue with the space elevator. Lets first have a look on some pics Hmmm so how was that... Reality is stranger than fiction, truly said for this... Some more Gyan: A consortium of scientists and industrial firms has formulated a plan to build a 'space elevator' that would dramatically lower the cost of getting into orbit. The Japan Space Elevator Association has published plans for the structure, which it estimates could be put in place for as little as $9bn. The group believes that the project would revolutionise the cost of satellite communications systems, and make orbital manufacture economically feasible. I will soon a four series article on this that will cover all.

Firefox VS Google's Chrome

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So the clash of Titans... well recently launched Google's Chrome has started creating waves in the market.. (Jai Google!! baba). Already established big dady has already packed its back for the competition. Read the story.... Mozilla fought back on Wednesday with some performance results to show a forthcoming version of Firefox outpacing Google's new Web browser, Chrome. During a launch event Tuesday, Google was eager to toot its horn about Chrome's performance running JavaScript, a programming language used to power many sophisticated Web applications such as Google Docs, Yahoo's Zimbra e-mail site, and Zoho's online application suite. Google showed performance results using its own collection of five JavaScript benchmarks and V8, Chrome's JavaScript engine, but Mozilla countered with a different test called SunSpider. SunSpider shows that the forthcoming Firefox 3.1, which uses a JavaScript acceleration technology called TraceMonkey, is faster than Chrome for

Elevator To Heaven!!!!

Well how high man can go,,, people say "Sky is the limit" . Well guys I think Japanese have taken this saying rather seriously. After pocket pets, robot dogs and an assortment of other crazy inventions, a collection of Japanese mad scientists have now decided that it's time to reach for the stars--literally. The idea is simple enough build a 36,000 km elevator that goes right up to a stationary satellite in space. Once completed, the cost of getting to space ought to be at least 100 times less than blasting away in a space shuttle, which will, in turn, make space accessible to more of us. "Just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space," says Shuichi Ono, chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association. The best part about the elevator is that in doesn't bend current laws of physics--the only challenges facing the project are those of infrastructure. It'll need stronger cable than any ever used, structural integri

Squeezebox - Voilla

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Hey all you muzic lovers who ever wanted a device that could quench your thirst for muzic anywhere, anytime you want... so u will say whts new in that... na na na there is a catch..... Check this out: Introducing Squeezebox Boom: the compact all-in-one network music player that combines award-winning Squeezebox functionality with an integrated amplifier and speakers to deliver crystal clear sound—in any room in your home. There are no additional accessories needed, or network cables to connect. Just plug it in, follow the setup wizard, and enjoy your digital music collection. Set your music free. Squeezebox plays a wide variety of digital music files, including uncompressed and lossless formats—across a true 802.11g wireless network connection. Enjoy the widest choice of listening options beyond your own music collection, including thousands of internet radio stations or the MP3 Tunes online music locker. This service allows you, for example, to upload your whole music collection fro

LHC to shut down for two months

Well well well,, so readers as well said even the Titanics fall.. Helium leak forces LHC to shut down for two months But that doesnt stops this giant from operating.. it will be soon up and running... What happened: Geneva (Switzerland) – CERN reported the second major hiccup in getting its Large Hadron Collider(LHC) up to speed. A “large” helium leak, likely caused by a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, was detected on Friday. The repairs require the LHC to warm up, which means that the entire system will be offline for at least two months. The startup of the LHC isn’t going as smoothly as initially indicated. CERN said that an “incident” occurred in LHC’s final sector (34) at mid-day on Friday, causing helium to leak into the tunnel. The organization believes that the leak was likely caused by “a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure.” To repair the connection, the magnets will have to be

JavaScript eval() Function

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Well, this is a javascript function that most of the web programmers must have come across, but still we overlook it. Although this function is very powerful. So lets digg into this function and make our life simpler. First some Gyan about eval: The JavaScript EVAL command can be very powerful when using dynamic content in Web-based applications. EVAL can reduce code and eases interaction with data that is unknown at load time. As EVAL allows you to dynamically create and execute JavaScript, you can use it to reduce the number of lines of code you need to use; you can also use it to create JavaScript to perform activities that would be significantly more difficult without using the command. In many cases, you can move this functionality out of a single page and convert it into a generic function that you can reuse thanks to the EVAL function. eval , evaluates and/or executes a string of JavaScript code that is contained in the codestring argument. First, eval determines if the arg

Lossy and Lossless Compression - Part 4 (a four part series)

This is the final part of the How zip works, Guys!!! Hope u all liked the series and had some insight in the zipping process: The type of compression we've been discussing here is called lossless compression, because it lets you recreate the original file exactly. All lossless compression is based on the idea of breaking a file into a "smaller" form for transmission or storage and then putting it back together on the other end so it can be used again. Lossy compression works very differently. These programs simply eliminate "unnecessary" bits of information, tailoring the file so that it is smaller. This type of compression is used a lot for reducing the file size of bitmap pictures, which tend to be fairly bulky. To see how this works, let's consider how your computer might compress a scanned photograph. A lossless compression program can't do much with this type of file. While large parts of the picture may look the same -- the whole sky is blue, for e

Latest Logitech MX Air Mouse( beauty with brains)

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Hmmm, Well well well,, readers we have all seen the mouse evolving.. from 1963 when Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the mouse. Then to mechanical mouse. optical mouse..... and soon this humble deveice became one of the most importnat input devices. But believe me the mouse of our dreams is here..... its like reinventing the mouse The leader of computer and IT peripherals, Logitech has recently announced its latest rechargeable wireless mouse which named as Logitech MX Air Mouse. Logitech MX Air Mouse is a cordless mouse that able to work in the air, similar to how gamers control the Nintendo Wii. Without question, you can also use it on any surface as well as clear glass, a ground-breaking breakthrough. With Logitech’s Freespace motion control technology that based on a combination of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) sensors, DSP (digital signal processing) technology and RF (radio frequency) wireless technology, this laser mouse can provide accurate

Sony Ericsson F305 Games list

Sony Ericsson F305 Games list Sony Ericsson F305 delayed from September to November due software problems for this phone. As I mentioned before, This first gaming phone will have 11 pre-loaded games on the phone plus 50 extra games on the Memory Stick Micro M2 card (512 Mb). If you want a list of all 5o extra games, mail me or put a comment....

How To Make Your PC Faster

Do you miss the speed of your PC when it was new? How about when the Operating System was freshly installed? PCs tend to slow down after installing drivers, softwares, and applications, and as they age. This article will guide you on how simple things can boost your PC. Step 1: Remove uwanted running programs For Windows users, you may check your Task Manager by holding CTRL + ALT + DEL and look at the programs running. Most of the process names are self-explanatory so you'll be able to know what specific application uses it. If the process name is somewhat unclear, you may research the process name at your favorite search engine and it will gladly return application that uses it in its result page. Step 2: Protect/cure your PCs from spyware/viruses/worms/etc. If you think that your PC is virus/spyware/worm/trojan-free, it is still better to protect your PCs with programs that attack on malicious softwares. There are a lot of these free programs. AVG, Ad-Aware, to name

Searching for Patterns - Part 3 (a four part series)

Searching for Patterns In our previous example, I posted out all the repeated words and put those in a dictionary. To us, this is the most obvious way to write a dictionary. But a compression program sees it quite differently: It doesn't have any concept of separate words -- it only looks for patterns. And in order to reduce the file size as much as possible, it carefully selects which patterns to include in the dictionary.So lets take a round on this If we approach the phrase from this perspective, we end up with a completely different dictionary. If the compression program scanned Kennedy's phrase, the first redundancy it would come across would be only a couple of letters long. In "ask not what your," there is a repeated pattern of the letter "t" followed by a space -- in "not" and "what." If the compression program wrote this to the dictionary, it could write a "1" every time a "t" were followed by a space. But

Redundancy and Algorithms - Part 2 (a four part series)

Redundancy and Algorithms Most compression programs use a variation of the LZ adaptive dictionary-based algorithm to shrink files. "LZ" refers to Lempel and Ziv , the algorithm's creators, and "dictionary" refers to the method of cataloging pieces of data. The system for arranging dictionaries varies, but it could be as simple as a numbered list. When we go through Kennedy's famous words, we pick out the words that are repeated and put them into the numbered index. Then, we simply write the number instead of writing out the whole word. So, if this is our dictionary: ask what your country can do for you Our sentence now reads: "1 not 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 -- 1 2 8 5 6 7 3 4" If you knew the system, you could easily reconstruct the original phrase using only this dictionary and number pattern. This is what the expansion program on your computer does when it expands a downloaded file. You might also have encountered compressed

How File Compression Works - Part 1 (a four part series)

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(Article for the novice but equally useful for the experts...) If you download many programs and files off the Internet, you've probably encountered ZIP files before. This compression system is a very handy invention, especially for Web users, because it lets you reduce the overall number of bits and bytes in a file so it can be transmitted faster over slower Internet connections, or take up less space on a disk. Once you download the file, your computer uses a program such as WinZip or Stuffit to expand the file back to its original size. If everything works correctly, the expanded file is identical to the original file before it was compressed. At first glance, this seems very mysterious. How can you reduce the number of bits and bytes and then add those exact bits and bytes back later? As it turns out, the basic idea behind the process is fairly straightforward. In this article, we'll examine this simple method as we take a very small file through the basic process

Dell Inspiron Mini 9

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Dell officially unveiled the Inspiron Mini 9 on September 7th 2008. This small, easy-to-carry device stands ready to connect teens, tweens, travelers and “Tweeters” to their online world be it surfing the Web, chatting with friends, blogging, streaming content, uploading photos or enjoying favorite online videos, music and games. The Inspiron Mini is an affordable Internet companion that can be fine-tuned to fit users’ specific needs and deeds. It is available nowin the U.S., Japan and select countries in Europe. Availability elsewhere will be handled on a country -by-country basis. …..Click here to read more

HTC

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HTC just changed the Touch Opal to Touch Viva, and judging by the render shots, its does look like the name change came with a design change as well- no sparkles.

How To Use Microsoft Excel Pivot Tables

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Pivot Table is a summary table of your original spreadsheet. Based on your field selections and how the data should be displayed, a pivot table can aggregate and show a different view of your data. All your comments, suggestions and corrections are welcome on this articles. Feel free to add on this article and help me and others learn more of this powerful tool. This is specially for my wife. For example, create a pivot table for Canada and USA sales report per quarter and year. Create a Table as data source (see the screenshot below) Create a PivotTable . • Click the first left data , in A1 cell, Year field (see black-rectangle in the screenshot above). • Click Data menu, select PivotTable and PivotChart Report submenu. In PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard window, "Where is the data that you want to analyze?" , click Microsoft Office Excel list or database option (see yellow-rectangle in the screenshot above). "What kind of report do you want to create?" , c

XPERIA X1 launches

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It’s seemed like forever, but it’s finally ready! Sony Ericsson announced on 10 September that the long-awaited XPERIA X1 will launch on the 30th of September, and will hit the stores in week 44! I can’t wait, and I’ve already signed up

Delhi Blasts

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This is enuff, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Now Its the capital of India Delhi. A series of Six explosions rocked Delhi, One after other Bombs rocked delhi … The first explosion was reported at Karol Bagh (Gaffar Market). Second blast was reported in Central Park of Connaught Place near The famous Pallika Bazaar Market followed by a third blast in GK’s M-Block market and two blasts at Barakhamba Road and Just got a report about one more blast at New Delhi Railway Station. Nearly 100 peoples are reported to be injured and around 50 are reported to be seriously injured. First blast at Karol Bagh was reported to be placed in an Auto-Rickshaw and second blast was followed by a blast in the cylinder kept on a scooter right behind the Auto Rickshaw. The Blast was so strong that it was reported that the auto rickshaw was jumped around 12 feet up in the air after the blast. The twin blasts on Barkhamba Road went off near the Metro Station. The first blast took place at 6:20 pm. All the aff

Microsoft Surface-How it works

How does Microsoft Surface work? Surface uses cameras to sense objects, hand gestures and touch. This user input is then processed and displayed on the surface using rear projection. Specifically: Surface uses a rear projection system which displays an image onto the underside of a thin diffuser which is the table's surface. Infrared light is also projected onto the underside of the diffuser. Objects such as fingers are visible through the diffuser by series of infrared–sensitive cameras, positioned underneath the surface of the tabletop. An image processing system processes the camera images to detect fingers, custom tags and other objects such as paint brushes when touching the display. The objects recognized with this system are reported to applications running in the computer so that they can react to object shapes, 2D bar codes (tags), movement and touch.   More on Microsoft Surface What is Microsoft Surface™?

Microsoft Surface-Simply Incredible

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Microsoft Surface (Codename: Milan), is a Multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of natural motions, hand gestures , or physical objects. It was announced on May 29 , 2007 at D5 conference. [2] Initial customers will be in the hospitality businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, retail, public entertainment venues and the military for tactical overviews. The preliminary launch was on April 17 , 2008 , when Surface became available for customer use in AT&T stores. [1] How it Works

How to Build Stronger Biceps

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The biceps are the prominent pair of muscles on the front of the upper arm connecting the shoulder to the elbow - and are used in everything from turning a key to lifting heavy boxes. Here is a simple exercise to build or define your biceps. Step1 Grasp a dumbbell in each hand with a relaxed grip. Step2 Choose a weight lighter than 15 pounds. If you're a beginner, start with 3- to 5-pound weights. Step3 Stand with your back straight, knees slightly bent, abdominal muscles contracted. Your feet should be flat on the floor and shoulder width apart. Step4 Hold the weights at your sides, keeping your arms relaxed and your palms facing inward. Step5 Starting with your left side, turn your wrist so that your palm faces forward. Step6 Slowly raise the weight by bending your elbow. Keep your back straight, your shoulder relaxed and your elbow close to your side. Step7 Slowly raise the weight until your knuckles are 3 or 4 inches away from your left shoulde