October 26, 2014

Travis Watkins a.k.a Amaranth

What Is A Hard Drive Crash?

wiahdcNowadays, everyone is online and use different computers and laptops to do their work, school stuff, and catching up with friends and loved ones. But if your computer suddenly crashes and blacks out, what do you do next? A hard drive crash is often called the “blue screen of death” which sucks all the stored data in your computer. What happens is the entire screen turns blue and you will be unable to access your files, photos, notes, and more. There is a difference between an operating system failure and the hard drive failure. Because compared to the operating system crash, wherein it is considered a logical failure, no matter what type of system you’re using – Windows or Mac – a hard drive crash is actually a physical failure wherein the hard drive has been…

by admin at October 26, 2014 06:02 PM

Looking At New Mathematics

THE public may be yearning for a return to the basics in public schools, but trend-setting administrators can’t get enough of innovations that are self-esteem-intensive and academically forgiving. Today’s lesson concerns California’s latest math curriculum, the new new math, where memorization is out, and creativity and fun rule the day. The philosophy behind new new math can be found in an early statement issued by the Instructional Resources Evaluation Panel (IREP), the panel responsible for choosing which math textbooks should be eligible for special state funding: ‘Early memorization of number facts is seen as a hindrance rather than a help in developing mathematical understanding.’ (Readers from other states be forewarned: the texts California buys soon sweep the nation.) The curriculum that the IREP rated highest — a whopping 100 per cent — featured ‘Dear Family’ letters,…

by admin at October 26, 2014 05:58 PM

A Mouse Is Not Just A Mouse

aminaajmSince I wrote a column on mouse evolution back in July, I’ve had a chance to see new species in action and I’ve come to some conclusions. The two alternatives I’ve worked with are Rollermouse, a trackball from CH Products in San Marcos, Calif., and Felix, a considerably more unusual alternative from Altra, a family-owned company based in Laramie, Wyo. Rollermouse is a direct swap for an ordinary serial-port mouse. Microsoft Windows was able to detect and use it with no installation process whatsoever, other than telling Windows which serial port to look at. I found using a trackball to be generally satisfactory. The movements are as intuitive as those of a mouse, even though the trackball moves in more dimensions than the mouse does. But I’m now back to a regular mouse, for three reasons.…

by admin at October 26, 2014 05:58 PM

BA Was Strong On IT From The Get-Go

basitSpeeding along the road to recovery from years of support problems and end-user revolts, Bank of America’s information center has opened four new retail stores that sell software, cabling and services — but only to the bank’s end users. The concept of an in-house retail chain as the distributor of end-user products has been tried and has failed at other major corporations. But after a month of operations at Bank of America, users and information-center (IC) managers alike think this one is going to be a success. “This is one of the ways we’re letting end users know that we’re working with them and not just shoving products down the pipeline,” said Arnold Birenbaum, acting IC director in the Concord, Calif., office. “If retail stores have failed before, it may have been because they were just…

by admin at October 26, 2014 05:57 PM

Shippers Fight It Out With Network Systems

nsnHow do major international corporations prepare their computer systems for the new economic community that will form in Europe in 1992? A pattern for future developments may be emerging in the parcel-delivery game, and hardware platforms are key elements in the top two players’ game plans. Top-ranked Federal Express Corp. is armed with number-crunching, fault-tolerant mini-based systems, while No. 2 United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS) favors flexible, high-speed PC-based LANs (see PC Week, Dec. 4, Page 1). Both companies use a wide range of hardware, but each has chosen a different platform. Federal Express, which is building a European system on Tandem Computers Inc. workstations and IBM AS/400 minis, has the modus operandi of giving the customer access to a powerful database. The firm has pioneered the system that it claims lets customers know…

by admin at October 26, 2014 05:57 PM

Service Bureaus Still Have Importance

gcspThere are two ways to generate a 35mm slide from a graphics program: Take the job into your own hands by transmitting slide data directly to a film recorder or send your graphics files to a graphics service bureau. Each method has its trade-offs. As service bureaus get easier to use, they appeal to users anxious to cash in on high-quality output without the headaches and expenses of 35mm slide production. “It’s like getting first-class vacation accommodations on a time-sharing plan,” said Herb Getzler, president of Magicorp, an Elmsford, N.Y., service bureau. “You don’t have to buy the facility you need only once in a while.” Traditionally, film recorders have been expensive and finicky pieces of hardware. But that may be changing as the cost of personal film recorders decreases, and the quality and ease of…

by admin at October 26, 2014 05:57 PM

October 25, 2014

Travis Watkins a.k.a Amaranth

Unix Remains A Flexible System

unixsAt the management consulting firm of Kestnbaum & Co. in Chicago, Systems Manager Joe Day got tired of waiting for OS/2. “Too little, too late,” he said. “It’s still so far off that we don’t intend to address it at all.” So Day made the move to Unix with a companywide network of 386 systems. Day supports about 20 users who have a variety of jobs. “Some write C, some know statistics, some are secretaries who do word processing and electronic mail,” he said. “They can all use the system to whatever level they need. They all use multitasking, with several sessions running at any time.” A multiwindow interface makes it easy for novice users to keep tract of several tasks. When companies move from stand-alone PCs to networks, most are concerned about two things: complexity…

by admin at October 25, 2014 06:17 AM

Restaurant Software- The System of Business Accuracy

Restaurant software serves as the system that enables business accuracy in many aspects for retailers with a keen mind. On the part of the business owners, it provides the easy way to check all the financial information of the specific food service location. I am talking about everything from your inventory down to the cost of the stock and the possible profits that your business will have in the future. You can call up all of that information accurately and you can track down the exactly what you have on hand inside the restaurant. See more restaurant software at this POS system company site. For the employees, it will change their function and provide them with a real ability to accomplish things like never before. If they are assigned to the kitchen, they can prepare the…

by admin at October 25, 2014 04:11 AM

Teenage Pregnancy Takes The Small Screen

Even though unwed motherhood is a hot-button issue right now, it’s rare to hear from women who know about the topic firsthand. But we’ll get that chance on Mother’s Day , when ABC presents “Mothers of Strength and Spirit,” the last program in the Passion to Play series of four shows devoted to female athletes. (The first two were broadcast in April; the third, “Women of Adventure,” airs May 7. One of the highlights of “Mothers of Strength and Spirit” is an interview with Karleen Shields, which is excerpted here. At 26, Shields is a highly regarded guard on the University of Southern California’s women’s-basketball team, a full-time sociology major, and the mother of two daughters, Ayesha, 8, and Keisha, 7. She was heavily recruited as a high-school senior in Texas, but then, finding herself pregnant,…

by admin at October 25, 2014 04:07 AM

Daydreaming – Winning Proposition?

So let’s talk daydreaming. There’s not a person alive who hasn’t engaged in it, and most of the time it involves simply letting the creative juices flow about what might be in life, a healthy stimulant prodding us forward. But some daydreaming involves wishing we were “the other person,” someone we know or have seen and who we assume is better in every way than we are. This kind of daydreaming, if left unchecked, can begin to have serious psychological, emotional, and behavioral effects. Let’s call this kind of daydreaming “envious envisioning.” It is both unhealthy and unwise. In envy, we negate in ourselves what we envy in another. For example, Chris is an attractive young man, talented, intelligent, with an outgoing personality. At least that’s the way I read him. He, however, feels inferior to…

by admin at October 25, 2014 03:57 AM