Tips For Buying a New Laptop

Well as we all know this course we're doing isn't just psychology, we have a technical side to it too. And for half of us that technical side will be lasting for the at least the next four years.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly a genius when it comes to computers, and that's why I've put together this handy guide of what to look for when buying a new computer that would be suitable for our course.

• Memory
  Now I don't know about you, but when I look at a computer the first thing that comes into my head is “How much memory does it have?”
  But before I can answer that question I have to define what memory is: it “refers to the computer components, devices and media that store digital data or information” as Rob once told us.
  
  
   I'm sure you all know what RAM is (Random Access Memory), and if you haven't heard of a hard disk then I think it's time you just stop reading. Both of these devices are used in storing memory, RAM for primary or “main” storage and the Hard Disk for secondary or “auxilliary” memory.
  
  
  Now, both of these memory devices are measured in bytes (zeroes and ones). And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the more the better.
  There are 1,000 bytes in a Megabyte and 1,000 Megabytes in a Gigabyte!
  The average computer which we IADT students are looking for is roughly 2 - 4GB.
  And try to find a Hard Drive with around 4200rpm – 5400rpm, or basically 40GB.
  So I think we can conclude: the more RAM the merrier!
  
  

• Price
  The next biggest issue for me (and probably the most important one for many people) is how much does it cost?
  The average laptop worth buying today can be anywhere from €400 - €1,500.
  This point can be the trickiest when it comes to students looking. Price is obviously a big factor to consider, and price value varies depending mainly on things such as;
  Memory capabilities
  Processors
  Operating System (for the love of god stay away from Vista!)
  Size
  Hard Drives and more...

The best advice I can give here is just shop around, use your consumer wits, and buy online to get discounts!

• Battery
  This was something I didn't exactly take into account when I was buying my own little beauty, but is a factor I now realise is really quite important.
  Again battery life depends on your laptop and how capable it is. On average it should last 2 or 3 hours, but there are ways to make it last longer, such as adjusting your screen brightness. It's best to try and find ways to increase it's life so you don't have to carry your charger around with you everywhere you go.
  You don't want to have your new laptop beeping low battery at you whenever you need it most.
  As time goes on this time can decrease. And one way to fix this is just to buy a new battery.

Different companies have different prices for new batteries, and this is yet another factor to look into before buying.

These can be anything from €50 to €150. Which is a real dent in your pocket, so be sure you know what you may potentially have to buy.

• Processor Power
  The final big thing you would need to consider when buying a computer is its CPU processor. In basic layman terms what you need to know here is that, the better the processor the faster your computer will run.
  This also greatly affects you battery life span.
  There are different CPUs out there, and an interesting option would be to purchase a Dual Core processor which uses two processors integrated into the one computer.
  The speed of processors is measured in Gigahertz. The bigger the number, the faster the processor will go. A hertz is just a rotation per second. On average I think your looking for 2.4GHz.

So there you go, those 4 points are the big things to look out for when buying a laptop! But just because those are the ones I chose to focus on, that doesn't mean they are the only things to watch.

Other factors, such as;

1. Weight – Lugging around a heavy laptop kills your shoulders.
2. Screen Size – Affects battery, weight more than anything.
3. Video card – Lets face it some of us are gamers at heart, and this is quite important for us.
4. USB Drives – These can be handy to have when you want to plug a lot of things in.

And you can be sure that there are more. We are talking about computers here, so remember there's always more!

Useful Links!

Hey people!
So we all know that referencing is a pain in the ass and will be for the next four years.
But fear no longer. Owl at Purdue is at your service.

Wanna know whats going on in the Psychological world? PSI is handy for that.

Can't remember how to shorten links like Rob taught us a few weeks back. Then just click!

This next one is just for general knowledge if anyone is interested in some of Freuds case studies. Here is a link to a BBC radio program on his case Dora.

Michael Bach has a great website for visual illusions.

Need Photoshop? Then here you go!

Silent Sound Technology

Don't you hate those annoying people that are always yelling into their phones “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? HOW ABOUT NOW?”

Or when you're walking along a busy street or riding the bus and have to talk louder over the din. Hell even those situations where you don't want to be overheard talking to your friends on the phone can get a bit tedious.

But fear no longer! Research is now being done into creating a new Silent Sound Technology!

Check it out HERE.

During the CeBIT (Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik; German for "Centre of Office and Information technology") of 2010 researchers revealed their ideas of creating a device that can be used for mobile phones that will translate lip and facial muscle movement into sound.

This means that effectively with this new technology we can have silent conversations and allow the tech do the talking for us!

The research is being concluded in the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and uses “electromyography, monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech”.

You may be asking yourself “so what? It's a phone conversations we're supposed to talk!”. But the implications of this go a step further, allowing people with voice box damage resulting in a loss of or severe voice damage to talk once more!

This technology may be a bit expensive as of now as they currently “use electrodes which are glued to the skin”. However one day soon these electrodes be incorporated into our cellphones according to Michael Wand, from the KIT.

Another intriguing aspect of this technology will be it's ability to translate into other languages, allowing you to silently speak and have your friends in Germany or France understand you in their native tongue!

Problems with this aspect emerge however in languages such as Chinese or Japanese where tone of voice (something a computer cannot duplicate) have significant meaning, and can change the meaning of certain words.

Which I guess does put a certain cap on the ammount of inter-lingual prank calls you can make!

The accuracy of the equipment is quite staggering, running at 99% efficiency and oly getting one word in every one hundred wrong, which if you think about it, is probably much better than the average person would score.

My only concern thus far is that when these become widely available, it sounds as though we are going to have to press the entire phone to our faces.

And also, will this be an application that we have to turn off and on? Because somehow I imagine trying to hold an actual conversation while the computer is simultaneously parroting every word we say. But at the same time, having to switch half way through a conversation, and then switch back again would get pretty annoying pretty quickly!

I suppose the filp side for that though is, even if it does create extra hassel, it may all be worth it for added privacey when telling people personal information over the phone, unless of course you happen to be in a room full of lip readers!

So I think we can be expecting these little beauties anytime between 5 and 10 years from now.

Don't forget to book yours people!

Facebook: The New E-Mail?

Through my random travels around the interweb today I stumbled across this little tid-bit of information, on, wait for it... Yahoo News (I know, I'm just as shocked as you, turns out that yahoo was actually good for something!).

So it seems that CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is hoping that the new technology he is planning to bring out for the popular social networking site is going to overtake the ancient (in digital time anyway) system that is email.

Right now their message box system looks, and acts much like your common hotmail or gmail account. However over the next few months it looks like Facebook will begin launching its new shiny and sparkly just-out-of-its-box way of doing things, which, apparently incorporates phone texts, IM chats and e-mails from non-Facebook accounts.

And what makes the guys over at FB Headquarters so confident that this will work? The “social graph” they have of all their users. Using this technology they'll be able to filter out messages from strangers and even our

chatterbox friends, by sorting them into a separate, less important box.

Another appealing aspect of this system? If you prefer getting texts, you'll get texts, if it'd emails you like than emails it shall be!

Yet, as much as this new messaging system may resemble e-mail, it isn't!

No Cc fields, and no subject lines. They seem to be stripping it all back to it's basics and even describe it as “this generation's equivalent of a box filled with years of love letters.”

But of course the other big email providers aren't exactly happy about this as it may steal away some of their users. Microsoft Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo are afraid that this new service will “nibble” away at them.

Personally I just think they're jealous, Facebook threatens to make them obsolete and there isn't anything they can do about it. Whereas Google seems to think this is great, with their CAO stating: "More competition is always good because competition makes the market larger...We are all well served by having everybody online."

And of course it isn't all roses, with an increased use of Facebook, and less reasons to use other services, more and more information will be shared, creating a greater security risk when it comes to privacy.

This increased risk has even been called “deeply disturbing” by a privacy watchdog group.

In fact google learned this the hard way when they attempted to merge their email service gmail with a social aspect in what they called “Buzz”. Unfortunatly for Google it was poorly designed and their users mistakenly opened up their emails for the world to see! And that then led to a lawsuit.

So will Facebook fall into the same trap? Or can they improve the design and layout to make it more user friendly?

We all know already that Facebook isn't as private as we would like it to be.

By adding apps we are inadvertenly giving permission for own personal information to be viewed by others, and many people aren't aware of using proper privacey settings.

This “box of love letters” could very well fall into the wrong hands and be read by people we would much prefer hadn't seen a thing.

If the people over at HQ can get that sorted out however it looks like a solid investment, that could very well revolutionise the way we send our mail.

So some people think it will fail, others think it's going to be the next big thing, but I guess we wont know for another few months at least, until it gets released.

Till then why don't you read all about it HERE and decide for yourself.

A short Intro

Hey everyone!
I suppose it's about time that I give you a proper introduction as to who I am.
For those of you who still dont know after nearly two months of college (dont worry I dont blame you, Im not exactly great with em either), my name is Brian.

 I'm not entirely sure what else I can say. The vast majority of you seem to think that I've been to Electric Pinic, which I'm sure must have been awesome, espically since I can't remember any of it :P.
Originally I'm from Kerry, though I sound nothing like it (I've often been mistaken for American or British, why though is beyond me) and this is my first time living away from home, so what better place to go than Dublin! Might as well dive head first into the deep end and live somewhere thats a pain to get back and forth to...

Lets see. I LOVE reading, I think I may be a tad bit of a bibliophile, I can hardly ever take something out from a library because I just need to own the book, reading it isn't enough.
I'm a big movie fan, though I never could tell you my favourite as it changes so frequently, or always seems to be tied with another. And one of the things I cannot stand, is when Hollywood makes a sequal purely for money: it makes me die a little inside :'(

I love music aswell, but then again, who doesn't thse days, it's practically a given. I tend to appreciate it for what it is, liking almost every genre out there. Those three hobbies are basiclly the big trifecta of what I do in my spare time, though with the work load on the rise I don't see enjoying them taking up a large portion  of my time anytime soon *le sigh*.
I'm pretty open mided about things in general, and I'd like to think of myself as accepting.
And well, what else can I say, we'll have 4 more years together, so i'm sure you'll get to know me before thats over and done with.