Technology Metro

Microsoft is launching a promotional event to showcase their new software. The first of the series of events will take place in Los Angeles, California on 27th of February. To attend this Microsoft event, you can register online for free and it doesn’t take that long to register. Registrations are still open for the first show that will take place in Los Angeles and it is free to register. Every person who attends this Microsoft event will get a free copy of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. So if you are interested in getting a free copy of these softwares, go ahead and register for the upcoming Microsoft event.

At this event, you can test drive all these three systems for yourself, talk to the software experts who were involved in making all these softwares and have a Q&A session with them. At the end of the show you will be handed Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 edition softwares for free.

Product giveaway kit good only for attendees of 2008 Launch Wave event, events that are targeted towards IT professionals. Limit one launch giveaway kit per person. All kits must be claimed at the event. This offer is non-transferrable and expires on May 22, 2008 while supplies last. Offer is not redeemable for cash.

To be eligible to attend this Microsoft Software launch even, you need to be at least 18 years old. Other than than, there is no restrictions. Remember, this even will start on February 20th 2008.

Photoshop is one of the most widely used photo editing softwares and has been form quite a long time. Whenever you thing of anything related to photo editing you most definitely think of Photoshop. Photoshop is not just used for editing pictures, you can also make your own custom graphics to put on your website or just to keep your creative juices flowing. If you know the know how, you can really create amazing graphics using photoshop. Even novices can create a graphics for their website with ease, you just have to know a little bit about photoshop and how it works. There are some Photoshop Brushes available which is preloaded (made by professional designers) with custom shapes which you can load onto your Photoshop. With the help of these brushes, you can make your very own great looking graphics without the advanced photoshop knowhow.

There are quite a few sites that provide free brushes and patterns for photoshop and Brusheezy.com is one of them. Every Photoshop brushes and patterns you can find at Brusheezy is free to download by all users. There are other sites like this but some of them only provide a few free download and charge a small fee to download their premium vectors, brushes and patterns for Photoshop. I downloaded quite a few brushes from Brusheezy and one my favorite Photoshop brush was Genesis Brush. I just messed around with quite a few brush I downloaded from Brusheezy and everything that I made using those brush looked cool. It had nothing to do with me, all the credit goes to the Photoshop brushes. I would call myself a novice in Photoshop and the custom Photoshop brushes made it just too damn easy for me to make any good quality graphics for my personal site. I an working on a header image for this blog itself, so look out for it. I could work out how to load the patterns into photoshop and use them though.

Edit: I made a new header using the brushes found at Brusheezy.

GPS which is known as Global Positioning System in full is a device that lets you know the almost exact latitude and longitude you are in at that moment of time. GPS was originally developed by the United States Department of Defense for military use (for accurate navigation in unfamiliar area, target tracking etc) but now as there is no cold war, the GPS technology is now available for use by everyone who can afford a GPS receiver. There are a lot of practical uses for the GPS systems like map making, land surveying but the most now a days GPS is widely used for traveling like Car Navigation and to find location while going on hikes. Car Navigation GPS systems are the widely used GPS function today as most of the cars and other automobiles in the United States has a Car navigation system installed. Here are the very basic details on how a GPS system works.

• GPS receiver calculates its position using four or more GPS satellites (Three satellites to calculate the distance and the fourth one to provide accurate time for that particular location)
• For finding out just the location, three satellites can be used.
• GPS consists of three things, on earth orbit satellites, a controlling and monitoring station and a GPS receiver.
• GPS satellites broadcast its signal through space which are picked up and identified by GPS receivers and receives latitude, longitude, altitude and time

This is basically how a GPS works. Ordinary people can Buy GPS receiver at most electronic retailers. One of the first uses of GPS when it was readily available to the public was its application in the aviation. The price of a GPS receiver was still quite high and not many people could afford it. As time passsed by the price of a GPS receiver dropped a lot ( as does all electronic device). Now it is readily available at stores and the price is very affordable. Now GPS receivers are even used as a Fish Finders for large fishing boats and ships. GPS has come a long way since its conception. GPS is a US based technology and now lots of other countries and continents have developed their own like the Galileo Positioning system by Europe, GLONASS by Russia, Compass navigation system by China and IRNSS by India but US based GPS is the widely used one.

I know this post is a bit off topic but an environment related post won’t do any harm. There is a lot of concern about the environment and right now environmental issues is at its heights. People are concerned about their environment and as the government is doing nothing, they want to take some kind of action against it. Lots of people do what they can and what means they have to contribute to the environment. Some people just want to go green because it has become a type of fashion to live a green life. I don’t think this green shoes will catch on with the fashion conscious people. The design on this shoes looks a bit primitive and lacks a good design. For a really environment conscious person, it won’t matter. This shoes is made entire of organic products and no harmful chemicals is used to make them. They don’t even use a glue because it is not good for the environment. The company that produces these green shoes are located in Seattle, which is main place for environment conscious people in the United States.

This shoes itself looks a bit like a moccasin. These green shoes are made of

• Wool - Pure 100% un-bleached and un-dyed natural fleece.
• Leather - Organically tanned with vegetable extracts from the bark of the Mimosa and Quebracho trees.
• Coir - Coir is a mixture of 60% coconut fiber and 40% natural latex. It is highly breathable and gradually molds to the shape of the foot.
• Latex - Pure vegetable rubber made from the silky sap of the Lectae Hevea tree. The milk is cured/coagulated naturally following a process similar to cheese making.

These are the only materials used to make this green shoes made by PozuUSA. This is a new shoes that will be available in lots of environmentally friendly stores very soon.

Xbox is now offering free download of the game called Undertow. This offer is only for Xbox Live subscribers. There was a bit of a Glitch in the Xbox live system in the past month of December and Microsoft are trying to mend it by giving away free download of Undertow for Xbox Live subscribers. This offer starts from January 23rd to January 27th. After that period of time, people will have to pay the regular price of 800 points. Undertow is getting some good reviews from games review sites and at gamestats.com Undertow is rated at 8.5 and is rated at 8.3 by gamers. Undertow is a Xbox360 game.

Undertow is a fast-paced action-shooter that sends you underwater as you battle up to 16 players for control of the oceans! Non-stop conquest-style battles push the envelope of onscreen effects and combat action and boast some of the most stunning graphics ever seen in an Xbox LIVE® Arcade title.

Seems like a great multi-player games for Xbox Live users. From what I read about this game, the controls are simple and has quite an incredible next-gen graphics for the visual underwater environment. Sounds like a good game to me. But this type of game is not my kettle of fish, I prefer role paying games like Grand Theft Auto, Prince or Persia etc.

This deal is dead now.

I posted an article on $400 off coupon for HP Pavilion laptops, that coupon code is dead. Don’t worry though, there is another deal on Office Depot for HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook. This is available in stores only. Here are the list of stores you can purchase a HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook for $700. The HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook come pre-configured and if you decide to change the configuration, it may alter the price and savings. The specifications of the HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook are:

• AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58 1.9 GHz Processor
• 12.1″ WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800) with Integrated Touch-screen
• 2GB DDR2 memory
• NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
• 160GB hard drive
• Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Integrated 802.11b/g Wireless LAN
• Fingerprint Reader/Webcam

The regular price for HP Pavilion TX1000Z Laptop on Office depot is $1050 but there is an instant $350 off deal. Here is the link to the HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook for $700 office depot page. The only catch is you will need to go to an Office Depot store near you and place the order. Go to an Office Depot Computer Design Station at a store, they will ship you the HP Pavilion TX1000Z Notebook to you after the order is placed. By the way, shipping is free.

You can purchase other HP Pavilion Laptops online. Here are a few good deals for HP Pavilion Laptops on office depot. HP Pavilion dv9720us 17″ Widescreen Notebook Computer With AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-60 costs $700 after two mail-in savings worth $200 and a HP Pavilion dv6707us 15.4″ Widescreen Notebook Computer With AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-57 for $580 after two mail-in savings.

In the digital world we live in today, we can’t function without a computer which saves our important digital files. For me the most important thing I have on my computer are my songs, I can’t live without my songs. Backing these up takes a lot of space I have only made a backup of my important files. It will take a lot of DVD’s to backup all the files and songs I have stored on my hard drive. There are other ways to backup your important files. The most recent development is Online Backup. There are lots of companies that provide online backup features for free or charge a nominal fee for it. IBackup - Online Backup is one of the online companies that allow users to backup their files online but they charge a fee for their services. For a fee of $9.95 per month you will get a 10GB online storage space where you can store your important files. But there is a catch to it, you will need a broadband internet to upload all your files. You can try the IBackup Demo and try out their service and if you like the features and services they provide, you could subscribe to their online backup service after trying it out. To try out their IBackup online trial, you will only need to enter you email address and thats it.

There are other free online backup services available there will always be an extra feature on a paid service that will be very useful than a free service. To use Ibackup’s online backup service, you will need to download the IBackup’s software and thats all you need to do beside paying the subscription fee. Everything will be automatically backed up according to the settings you choose. They even provide remote PC service if you ever need to connect to your home pc while you are thousands of miles away. To use this feature, you will need to install a software on your home PC and leave the internet connection on while you are away. There is a remote PC software already available as a default on Windows XP (I am sure there is a similar default software available on Windows Vista system) but there will be some extra features for a paid service.

Almost everyone now a days owns a laptop. The main reason for it is because of the laptop’s portability. You could carry your laptop with you anywhere you go which is not true for a desktop computer. Maintaining a laptop is quite simple. There are a few steps you need to follow to keep your laptop in top condition. First off, don’t eat or drink near your laptop, there is always a chance of you spilling your meal on your laptop. Just in case that happens, unplug your laptop, remove the batteries and turn your laptop upside down as it takes some time for the liquid to enter your laptop chassis from the keyboard side. Prevention is always better than cure but still if this happens, you can prevent maximum damage by following the above method.

• Always protect your LCD screen (don’t place any sharp or bulky objects or any object for that matter under your screen while closing the lid) . If you need a replacement, you can find Laptop LCD Screens on lots of online stores.
• Don’t manhandle the LCD screen.
• Use your laptop with clean hand.
• Don’t pull or twist your on your Laptop’s AC Adapter and power cord or put anything on top of the cords. Replacement Laptop AC Adapters can be found here or on other online stores.
• Plug in accessories on the proper slot and at a correct angle. Not doing so can damage the slot permanently.
• Don’t place your laptop in extreme temperatures ( For eg: leaving your laptop inside a car while you are away).
• Clean your laptop at least once a year to get rid of dusts. Dust accumulation can cause your laptop to not dissipate heat properly which can cause overheating and damage your motherboard. Laptop Repair and maintenance should be left to computer hardware professionals.

If you follow these steps, your laptop should be working in tip-top condition for a long time.

It is quite hard to find a great deal on products you want to buy if you don’t know where to look. There are some sites that publish new deals on products, on some you will need to search for the product you want and the site will show you the best price available online.. Savebuckets is one of the later sites. You just enter the name of the product you want inside the search box and savebuckets will do all the hard work and list the most matching products for you with the the list of all the shops that have this product on sale with the stores price. You will be able to see the best price available on any products.

Right now, the best selling item listed at Savebuckets is an 80GB iPod classic mp3 players and the lowest price for it is £149.00 on three online stores, amazon, the link and Dixons. Savebuckets sell nothing, they are just a price comparison site to help buyers to find the best deal on any product from the whole online market. They don’t charge anything, all the comparisons are done for free. People looking for a best price should give this site a try. Its free and if you are not satisfied with the results or anything else, you can just close the browser.

A couple of weeks back Sony announced the addition of Skype feature to its new slim and light PSP. For people who are already using skype, this could be a very handy thing, no need to turn on your laptop or carry it around to make calls from skype. A Slim and Lite Play Station Portable will do the job for you. Here is a demonstration of PSP skype function from the Consumer Electronics Show. The skype function will be added to the PSP 2000 Series Hand held entertainment system. There will be a system software update available for older PSP users scheduled to release in the end part of January which will enable the use of Skype on older PSP hand held entertainment systems. After updating the software, a skype icon should appear on the network section of your PSP.

Play Station Portable, I can’t say enough from the design point of view. It is just too damn slick. The graphics of the games is mind blowing for a gadget of its size. The wide screen is just awesome. The memory is the bad part on the Play Station Portable that came out till now. The load time for games on UMD is a bit too long. PSP users could use a bit more RAM than the 32MB integrated Ram. There are quite few great functions available on all PSP systems. PSP is almost the perfect portable entertainment system. If there was a cellular phone and a Digital camera function, it would be the perfect all in one high end gadget. I hope Sony include these functions in the future versions on PSP. You can

• Play movies and videos from UMD’s or from a Memory Stick Duo
• Listen to music on it (PSP supports MP3, WAV, WMA and ATRAC3+ files, and MP4 file formats)
• Play games (obviously)
• Surf the web (Wi-fi IEEE 802.11b is included on all versions of PSP for wireless internet connection), you could use this function to listen to internet radios.
• View pictures stored on memory stick

With the inclusion of Skype on PSP, you could these skype functions over your Play Station Portable.

• make free voice calls between Skype users
• Skype contact list management (view existing contacts, add new ones)
• Skype presence (see which friends are online and available to talk)
• SkypeOut for calling anyone anywhere in the world (you need to have skype credit to use this function)
• SkypeIn number that lets you receive calls on Skype from landlines and mobiles anywhere in the world (need to purchase SkypeIn package from Skype to use this function)
• View and modify Skype settings and account details (including username creation, SkypeOut settings, voicemail settings and call forwarding)

So you will be able to do anything with skype on PSP that you can do on your PC or Laptop.