Safe and efficient data handling is a necessary measure for a business that wants to implement a successful storage and backup plan. Intel® has developed several storage solutions with that in mind. One is not necessarily better than the other; the preferred storage method simply depends on a company’s needs and existing infrastructure. Today the functionality of a NAS and SAN are very similar; however, there are specific technical differences. The primary technical differences between a NAS and a SAN are:

A NAS identifies data by file name and byte offsets, transfers file data or file meta-data (file’s owner, permissions, creation data, etc.), and handles security, user authentication, file locking.

A SAN addressesidentifies data by disk block number and transfers raw disk blocks typically via SCSI calls.

When looking at the two Intel® storage networking solutions, the benefits of both NAS and SAN show marked distinctions.

First, a NAS consists … Read the rest

Printer toner contains the ink – whether in liquid or powder form – that allows our computer documents to come to life so that we may hold them in our hand. When we choose the print option from our computer, a signal is sent to the printer, and ink – of all necessary colors – is released onto our papers reproducing exactly the document we constructed on our computer.

Each printer comes equipped with compatible printer toner. Depending on the volume with which we print, the printer toner will have to be changed periodically or more frequently. In this case, we purchase replacement printer toner – which in many a case can be an expensive proposition.

Of course when replacing the printer toner most people turn to the printer manufacturer. The specific printer toner that is compatible with your printer comes with a product number that will help you easily … Read the rest

Sun power is one of the strongest free energy sources available today. By using a solar charger for your batteries and other electrical devices, you will eliminate the need for electricity. Solar power can be used to charge your batteries, but if you have a large amount of solar panels, you can also use solar energy to operate most any electrical device. Even on cloudy days, a solar battery charger will still be able to charge your batteries.

Portable solar chargers are smaller and do not offer as much power. They are most commonly used to charge battery packs and other small devices like cellular phones. A portable charger usually consists of one solar cell panel that you can connect to the equipment you want to use. It can take several hours for a portable solar charger to work. You may need to plan ahead and have batteries constantly charging, … Read the rest

Web

Web cameras typically have a digital camera which uploads images to a web server, either continuously or at regular intervals. Internet cameras can be used to monitor traffic, the weather and even volcanoes. Internet cameras connected to PCs can act as web cameras with certain software; the software uploads pictures to an FTP server, from which they can be made accessible to anyone, over the web. Internet cameras are also being used for security purposes. Internet cameras typically include a lens, an image sensor, and some support electronics. The term Internet cameras is also used to describe the low-resolution digital video cameras, which can also be used to record in a non-real-time fashion. A Internet cameras that records to a video file is essentially no different from any other video camera which records directly to hard disk, including hi-def cameras,which would never be described as Internet cameras. Occasionally, the … Read the rest

iPod

iPod isn’t great because of 80Gb storage or big screen. It isn’t great because of flashy features. No. iPod is great despite DRM obsessiveness of Apple, despite little customizability and despite high price.

It was the first and only MP3 player that has got soul.

Its little brethren haven’t got any; its imitators haven’t got any, but iPod has the character of classy prostitute–expensive, stylish and damn sexy.

You never thought that music player can be your friend, but pals at Apple show you the contrary.

iMac Core 2 Duo

Even if Apple products feature prominently in my blog, I’m not an Apple fanboy. My main desktop is Windows-based, and I have many complaints for Macs.

Even more, I disregard Mac Pro (which I still remember as Power Macintosh back from G3 days) as one of the most disgusting leviathans in computer industry.

But iMac… iMac has got soul, … Read the rest

EDA domain is purely in software. It is how software are used to help integrated circuit (IC) designers to design ICs. These software are referred to as EDA tools.

While the high level stage of the IC design requires a lot of creativity, but the low level and details part of IC design can be very repetitive, tedious and boring. The EDA tools help the designers in doing the repetitive and tedious tasks.

While in collage, students majoring in electronics learn basic electronic system design using small number of components called gates. Basic system can be construct with less than 10 gates. By their final year, the students will learn how to construct larger system which consists of up to hundreds of gates. This is not how it is done in the real world.

In the real world, a system such as the Intel Pentium 4 chip is constructed from … Read the rest

• Case
  Your case is important because it is going to be sitting in your living room alongside your television, DVD player, stereo and so on. You don’t want some beige office PC cluttering up your home theater. Here you can either splurge on a custom, HTPC case or you can paint and customize your own. I went with contact paper and acrylic paint as a cheap solution to decorating a beige case.
• Video Card
  Incredibly, your video card is a place you can save some money on your homemade Tivo. Unless you plan on playing some serious high-end computer games, all you need is an appropriate video out (s-video, DVI, or HDMI depending on your needs).
• Tuner Card
  Make sure you don’t go cheap here. Go with a Hauppauge brand tuner card. At least the PVR-150. These are quality cards that take a load off your main processor.
• Sound Card

… Read the rest

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol but is more commonly know as Digital Phone, Broadband Phone, or even internet Phone service. Simply put, it refers to using your internet connection to talk to people. The people you talk to can be across the world or even just down the block.

Although there are free programs to let your computer act like a telephone, it is more common for people to purchase specially made devices that are separate from their computers but still use their internet connections. These devises then also plug into your homes telephone wiring system. This has the advantage of allowing people to use the phone equipment they already own.

To make a call, just pick it up, dial a number and talk just like you would with a traditional phone service. It does not matter if the person receiving the call has VoIP or not, because … Read the rest

Prototypes are an important step in the manufacturing process. It is in this process that we will encounter computer numerical control or CNC prototyping. In CNC prototyping, a computer controller basically translates the design data and produces a 3D output of that data through a mechanical device.

This whole process has revolutionized the manufacturing process because previously, prototypes were difficult to produce because it consumed a lot of time, effort and cost to make. Now with CNC prototyping, complex 3D virtual designs by design engineers are easily translated actual 3D models with straight and curved lines easily replicated automatically. With CNC prototyping machines, producing prototypes are fast, easy and cost effective.

Now that CNC prototyping processes are available for most prototyping problems, the manufacturing process is greatly sped up. The savings in time and effort allow greater productivity by allowing design engineers to work on more with less time needed. … Read the rest

Being about the same size as the standard pen, USB pen drives, most popular added feature to date is its MP3 playback function. A lot also have an LCD display for track browsing, and audio input jack and a rechargeable battery. The newer models also offer up to 10 hours voice recording and may even come with tiny speakers for added functionality.

Further, a lot of pen drives come with card reader support for portable memory formats. Some of the newer pen drives can double as a Web cam and a still camera because they have tiny camera lenses for snapping low resolution pictures. These units also come with mountable stands and for greater functionality as Web cams.

USB pen drive applications may also be used to allow the user to save desktop configurations, documents and even bookmarks and makes for easy accessibility and transfer from one computer to the … Read the rest