Wednesday, February 3, 2010

How to Become a Computer Expert

If you work in office environment for example, you may be faced with a situation where your employer purchases a new piece of software in the hopes that it will help his company become more efficient. As a result, you may be required to learn to use this new piece of software. Even if you work in a warehouse this new software may required that you need to enter inventory and print packing slips.

With computers, unlike many other subjects, such as accounting, where without theory you simply can’t make the correct journal entries, there is a growing number of people without formal training who have very productive careers in the field of computers.

As a self taught computer user the writer notes that computer user frustration is not distinctive to age of user. Technology is what it is and can be learned by young and old alike. I particularly liked the simple logic offered in Chapter 2: ‘Most learning comes from repetition and practice, but computers require we start with exploration and then practice techniques once we find them.

To become a computer graphic designer, the basic requirements include good creative abilities, good computers skills, and good communication skills.

One of the best things about computer franchise ownership is that you are buying the rights to a final product or service with a track record. You will be able to use the trademark, name and all advertising tools. Customers will already be expecting good service and quality products your business name implies, which will decrease the time it takes to establish trusting relationships with your customers that will lead to future business.

It may seem like a lot to give someone who’s signing up for a free newsletter, but the rewards can be great. The long-term value of a newsletter subscriber base can be monumental! As you can see, computer courseware can add great value to your products and services, and it’s usually very easy and affordable to get started.

If you’re having difficulty, some training will more than repay its cost in saved time, reduced hassles and a higher quality output when using your computer.

Probably the most simple, and the most cost effective method of obtaining this process is the most overlooked today. With almost each and every computer program that you purchase there are three types of documentation included in your purchase: the software manual, internal software help programs, and the online help program.

Graduates who have successfully completed CAD training programs are qualified to prepare technical drawings and architectural plans that are used for many aspects of production and construction.

Besides formal education and certifications, there are also some hands-on training programs provided in the market. By participating in these training programs, you are able to learn how to create effective computer crime policy and how to utilize computer forensics tools and manual techniques through hands-on practice.

The history of computers started out about 2000 years ago, at the birth of the abacus, a wooden rack holding two horizontal wires with beads strung on them. When these beads are moved around, according to programming rules memorized by the user, all regular arithmetic problems can be done. Another important invention around the same time was the Astrolabe, used for navigation.

Monday, January 11, 2010

CES 2010: Lenovo unveils 'hybrid' computer

The hybrid design of the device means that the IdeaPad U1 is effectively two computers – each with its own process and operating system – in one portable gadget. Lenovo said the laptop and the tablet could work together or operate independently, with users able to choose whether to use them as a conventional laptop, or split them apart to use the tablet screen as a separate device.

“The IdeaPad U1 hybrid notebook is a game-changing technology in the PC industry," said Liu Jin, a senior vice president at Lenovo. "It lets user switch their PC experience within a single device to match their dynamic lifestyle.

“By fusing the functionality of a notebook with the slate tablet’s rich multitouch entertainment and mobile internet experience, the U1 provides consumers the freedom to choose the device they prefer for any activity.”

When connected together, the devices form a 1.7kg laptop that runs Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system. But when split apart, the 11.6in screen transforms in to a tablet-style computer, allowing users to send emails, browse the internet and log on to social networking sites over Wi-Fi or the 3G mobile phone network. It runs Skylight, Lenovo's own computer operating system.

The two devices can be synchronised to share data, documents and wireless connectivity, and if a user is surfing the internet on the laptop, they can detach the tablet to continue browsing those same web pages on the move.

The IdeaPad will initially be available in the United States, at a price of $999 (£630), with a UK launch expected later this year.

Tablet-style computers are proving to be one of the major trends at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with a host of manufacturers unveiling devices that can be used for computing on the go. Entourage Systems has shown off the eDGe, which features two screens; one is an eInk screen, and is designed predominantly for reading ebooks, while the other LCD screen is a tablet-style computer, running Google's Android platform.

Apple is widely expected to launch its own tablet computer later this month, although the company has refused to comment on the rumours and speculation surrounding the so-called 'iSlate' device.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Movies on the TV on the Computer on... Read more: Movies on the TV on the Computer on...

One thing bugging me in these last weeks of the naughty-aughts is the triumphal smugness of my TV-critic colleagues, the lucid Emily Nussbaum (in New York) and the trenchant David Bianculli (on NPR’s Fresh Air): The Wire this, The Sopranos that, The Shield Battlestar Sex and the Oz and The Office and HBO blah blah blah. What’s most irritating is they’re right. Television—at least cable television—has embraced longer and more complex storylines and left movies behind as a narrative medium. The Brits have been doing this kind of thing for years, but Americans have finally caught up and surpassed them. There has been a mighty leap—both in form (open-ended, polyphonic) and content (no moral absolutes, protagonists more imperfect than perfect).

I did say narrative. However blurred the lines between TV and cinema, TV hasn’t caught up with cinema as an interior medium, a pipeline to the unconscious. Twin Peaks was as far down that road as TV went—and subsequent attempts to match it saw their creators getting gotten lost in the thicket. (Most of the second season of Twin Peaks was thicket.) David Lynch might have conceived of Mulholland Drive as a TV series, but for all its bleeding narrative entrails, it seemed far more at home as a single, self-contained, semi-psychotic cinematic vision. That's another difference: When we talk of auteurs in TV, we mean David Chase and David Simon. We mean Larry David or Ricky Gervaise. Most of us have no idea who directed or even scripted the episodes we loved. (You have to go back to the early days of TV, to something like the live Playhouse 90 drama The Comedian with Mickey Rooney—included in a great Criterion Collection box on early TV live drama—to see a director like John Frankenheimer strutting his stuff.)

That said, the writing is on the wall… or tablet. By the end of the next decade, most of the movies we see will be downloaded from the Internet onto our gigantic monitors. Theatrical exhibition will move more and more toward “event” movies—3-D, comic-book sequels, etc. You’ll find the indie films online and pay to buy or rent them. Some will go viral. Others will make back their (low) costs by finding niche markets. Most will go unseen except by family and friends. Emily and I—if our magazine still exists—will have bloody turf wars over what is my bailiwick and what is hers.

Odds and Endings: I left out some performances in my last post, chiefly Christian McKay’s uncanny Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles—not just an impersonation but a supernatural incarnation of the man himself. (Zac Efron is rather good, too!) See Sita Sings the Blues at the IFC Center if you live in NYC; buy the DVD if you don’t. Read Dwight Garner’s fascinating round-up on The Big Lebowski academic books in the New York Times book review—and check out my own 2004 Times piece. (Nyah-nyah, I got there first.) Wallow in movie blogs like Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule and The House Next Door. This Avatar-related piece by Lane Brown had me laughing so hard I choked.

Get out of the house and go to a movie in a theater, but don’t be suckered by Precious or Up in the Air or It’s Complicated, however slobbered over by Times critics. Try to find the criminally underrated Brothers. Don’t drink too much, and never drink and e-mail (or blog). Till the ‘teens…