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Technology News Today

XBox 360 Kinect, Useful Facts You Need To Know Before Purchase

It’s November 10th 2010, and the Xbox 360 Kinect has recently been released just in time for the holiday season. A visit to the Best Buy store if you live in the US or any other electronic store in your home country and you can sample what all the fuss is about.
In recent years video gaming has moved more towards motion game control. It started off with the Nintendo Wii in 2006 with the Wii controls. Sony PlayStation joined the party with Sony PlayStation move. And now finally after all the hype, the Kinect for the XBox 360 has made it’s entrance.
In this article we will look at what makes the kinect console worth having this holiday season.
XBox 360 Kinect
One major difference between the Kinect and other competitor consoles is that it’s totally hands free. There are no hand controls, all you need to do is act out the motions in front of it’s built in camera. The new XBox console uses a small camera and an infrared sensor that tracks a players movement in front of a screen.
There are gamers, who are not necessarily enthused by getting too involved in any video play and prefer consoles where they can sit, relax and play. If this is you, the new Kinect console is certainly not for you.
The new console is aimed at getting you more involved with the game. It is more family and friends orientated where you can play with each other, and against others online. The sensor technology is pretty good. 9 out of 10 is a fair assessment. There is a very slight delay in motion, but you probably won’t even notice it.
In terms of games available, there are some good sports, dance and fitness games. I had the chance of trying out Kinectimals and I have to say it was great fun. It’s really fun for younger kids to learn about animals, movements, commands and play at the same time. Impressive.
The XBox 360 kinect comes in either the 250GB or 4GB memory. The 250GB is priced less than $400 at most stores and 4GB at less than $300. If you are going to purchase online, try getting a seller to provide free shipping.
The kinect is yet to come out with any action or war type games. If you are into those games, you will have to wait until they get released. A fighting game that is due for release is fighters uncaged if you are into such games.
Even though the kinect for xbox 360 has a limited number of games, in my opinion it will be a holiday season must have. At the time of writing there is already a huge demand. Video gaming has moved on towards motion sensor technology. Gaming is no longer just about one player vs the console. Now it’s about competing with friends, family and even online. You don’t have to be a couch potato anymore, with games like Zumba fitness, Your shape fitness evolved and Kinect sports.…

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Latest Computer Technology

More MPG – Do You Know the Best Way to Increase Your Miles Per Gallon?

You have surely seen the many products on the market that promise to get more mpg out of your vehicle. Most of them are just tricks and gimmicks. Fact is, only a few will actually make a difference you can notice in your pocketbook. Some are good and some not so much. Some are cheep, some expensive, some are simple, some are very complex. I will give you some in-site and facts about how to get the best bang for your buck; I will also touch on some of the benefits that go above and beyond just getting better mileage when you choose the right product.
If I where to say it is possible to increase your mpg by 50 to 60 percent by installing an hho conversion kit in your vehicle, many of you might say that is just crazy, or this guy must be exaggerating. You might also say if it is possible, it must cost a fortune to buy and get it installed. The truth is these kits have been on the market for years. They go by many different names such as, hydrogen conversion, gas conversion, hho system, and so on. I may call it by several names but you can now I am talking about the same thing.
As I said, this hydrogen fuel technology has been around for some time but has only recently been perfected. The earlier kits where not reliable, they could not save you as much as they do now, and could actually do harm to your engine. In most cases, you would need to have it installed by a professional. The best kits out there today are very cheep and can be installed by you, at home in your driveway, and in only a few hours.
Yes, there are many little things you can do to get more mpg. You can keep your windows closed, keep your tires properly inflated, keep your tank topped off, drive slower, and time the traffic lights. I could go on but you get the point. None of these is going to make the difference that a gas conversion kit will do.
Let me explain what the technology is. You are not running on hydrogen or water only. The system converts water to hydrogen and injects it into the air intake of your engine, mixing it with the gasoline in the combustion chamber, thus using less gasoline. Result, more mpg. Simple right? Here is the kicker, by using this concept of hydrogen conversion, you are not only getting more mpg you will get more power and acceleration. On top of that, you burn cleaner fuel that leaves much less c02 emissions in the air. There is more. Being that your fuel system is running cleaner, you are in turn prolonging the life of your engine.…

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Latest Technology

How Can Teachers Use Classroom Technology Like an Interactive Whiteboard?

Technological advances play significant roles in our personal, social and professional lives. Teachers can incorporate these technological advancements in the classroom as a teaching tool. Nevertheless, kids nowadays can easily adapt to these advancements in technology as compared to adults. Hence they clinch onto technology, have fun, and at the same time learn things that they otherwise would not have.
Teachers can use certain computer software to create lesson plans and activities that are more interesting. Middle and high school students can be given tasks on surfing the web for homework and other tasks. With the use of computer and the internet, students can enhance a broader capacity for learning.
The use of email and text messages can also be used as a teaching tool and a learning tool at the same time. Teachers can send specific tasks such as homework, project or as a reminder for tests via text message alerts or email. Students respond better and faster with this kind of communication tool.
Moreover, teachers can use an interactive whiteboard rather than the conventional chalk and blackboard. This classroom technology is the most interesting of all. A white board uses a touch screen, which offers a more interactive way of learning and teaching. Sometimes, children can use a handheld remote clicker to answer the questions on the interactive whiteboard.
To end with, teachers and students will equally benefit on the uses of this classroom technology. Not only that it proposes interesting means for both learning tool and teaching tool, but also assists in the coping with technological advancements.…

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Tech News Today

Kids and Technology – Is This Tandem Beneficial?

Today, technology has played a very big role in everyone’s life. With online banking, transactions have never been this easy and convenient. With eShopping, purchasing goods has never been this far-reaching.
All these technological advancements, however, have placed a strong hold to children too. Today, you could hardly see a kid without a PSP, a Nintendo DS or a video system at home. Talk about simple stuff, nearly every kid has a television or a computer in his room.
Truth be told, kids’ access to technology is both beneficial and dangerous. Let’s see why.
On a Positive Note
Today, more than ever, kids have unlimited access to the internet. They can play with their video gaming consoles everyday. And of course, they can watch television all day long. As a result, children are exposed to a lot of visual and auditory stimulation.
This is a good thing, because at age 0-6, a kid’s brain is still developing. So they need as much stimulation as possible to become smarter and better individuals.
By being exposed to the latest in technology, kids are taught – at an early age – about the vastness and the usefulness of the internet and other video games. Learning becomes multi-faceted as kids today no longer solely depend on one instructional medium: books.
On a Negative Light
Child psychologists and medical practitioners, however, are unanimous in identifying the negative effects of too much exposure to technology. They contend that too much visual and auditory stimulation produces “addiction-like” effects. Because kids are used to too much stimulation, they’d grow restless, anxious and even aggressive when they do not have this level of “input.” This explains why they get irritable when they are just told to stay put and not play with their PSP’s.
Second, too much exposure to technology could interfere with quality time with their families. Instead of spending their time playing or going to the park with their parents and siblings, kids would prefer to stay at home and be in the company of the computer or their home gaming sets.
Psychologists also believe that during their development years, kids should spend more time in active play, physical undertaking and even reading. With the presence of laptops and gaming consoles, however, these activities are set along the sidelines.
As a result, their social skills maybe affected. Because kids now find more meaning in playing alone, they would find it hard to appreciate the company of others. Everyone knows that social skills are very important for one’s success, as such, this has to be developed as early as 2 years of age.
The advent of technology brings with it a multitude of advantages. With technology, people are experiencing a better quality of life. But as with anything else, too much of something is bad. Therefore, it is your challenge to know when something is too much, or too little. It is up to you to balance the exposure of your child to visual and auditory stimulation. As a parent, it is your call to know when exposing your child to technology would do him more good than bad. That’s the only way for you – and your child – to take full advantage of what technology brings.…

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General Article

Creating an Invoice Using Excel

Creating an Invoice Using Excel

The elements of an invoice can be quoted as the most important constituents in a business trade as a form of evidence. Most companies, either small or large corporation firms will require you to invoice them their orders. Invoice is vital to keep an organized record of the business deals in terms of the price, quantity and details of the products or services. Usually, the invoice may come in several copies where you and your client should possess one each as a proof to avoid superfluous conflicts in the future.

The Microsoft Excel is generally a program invented to perform automatic calculations. It can evaluate mathematical calculations such as addition, multiplication or subtraction of data just by simply entering the coding information called functions into the program. As such, it is ideal to create invoices as the results will automatically be derived as the alteration of data takes place. Basically there are few simple steps you should follow to produce an invoice.

Firstly, you will need to make the headings. Enter headings for the elements of an invoice in the first row. The commonly used headings should include quantity, product, price, date, product subtotal and discounts. Then you should begin arranging the cells. Any cells containing texts should be formatted, including those having currency or dates. To perform the arrangement of cells, you can click on the cell then select “Format Cells”. Choose the “Date” from the Category box for any date sections. Then select your desired type. There is a “Currency” option in the Category box for currency cells.

Next, key in whatever data you need. Enter the information for every item or service purchased. If you do not have the information available, you may want to empty a few rows to see how the invoice might appear. Include also the formula or product subtotal into the Microsoft Excel. To evaluate the subtotal for every product, choose the having the subtotal then type “=sum(” in the formula bar. Then select the cells that contribute to the subtotal such as discounts, price and quantity and click on “Enter” to shut the formula. Then continue by making the total cells. Choose all of the cells in the row that comprises the subtotal cell. Then click on it and choose “Format Cells”. Select the “Alignment” tab, then “Merge Cells” from “Text control”.

Next select “Right” from the “Horizontal Alignment” tab and enter “Subtotal” in the cell.

After that, key in the invoice formulas. Choose the subtotal section and type “=sum(” and choose the rows containing the product subtotal. Then click on “Enter” to shut the formula. Select the “Taxes” section and key in “=[invoice subtotal cell]*[tax percentage]”. Next select “Enter” to shut the formula and continue with the “Total” cell. Type “=sum(” and select the “Taxes” and “Subtotal” cells before clicking “Enter” to shut the formula.…

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General Article

How Power Shell From CRM Solutions Allows SDK Message Throttling?

How Power Shell From CRM Solutions Allows SDK Message Throttling?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offers a set of Power Shell commands to activate command line administration and deployment. The commands render a subset of the Deployment Web Service to allow receiving and establishing advanced settings, among a host of other things. Microsoft Dynamic CRM allows an interesting way of configuring throttling on a subset of SDK messages.

An Instance

In order to understand how the process works, it is important to take into account any particular instance, which would help in understanding how throttling can be configured for a subset. For instance, there exists a scenario in an organization where there are multiple users using the Outlook Client. The Outlook Client does possess the capability of completely going offline and then reconnecting so that it is able to sync new data. When this particular scenario takes place, the administrator observes that the organization’s CRM instance encounters poor performance as at a time many users are trying to sync data simultaneously. One method of preventing this situation is through throttling of the large number of sync jobs.

In order to activate the throttle process through CRM solutions, it is important to first configure and add Power Shell Snap in.

The command for adding PowerShell Snapin is as follows:

Add-PSSnapin .Powershell

The next step is to enable throttling and the commands that need to be followed include:

#Get the current throttle setting object from ConfigDB and

#store it in a variable.

$eTmSettings = Get-CrmSetting -SettingType EtmSettings

#Change the properties of the settings object to enable throttling.

$eTmSettings.Enabled = 1 $eTmSettings.ThrottlingEnabled = 1

#Update the settings by saving the updated settings object.

Set-CrmSetting -Setting $eTmSettings

The third step is to get the throttle settings

# Get the current throttle settings object from ConfigDB and

# store it in a variable.

$settings = Get-CrmSetting -SettingType ThrottleSettings

When these commands are executed, it creates an object with the following properties:

MapiSyncMaxConnectionsPerServer

MapiSyncPerOrgMaxConnectionsPerServer

MaxBackgroundSendEmailRequestsPerOrgPerServer

MaxBackgroundSendEmailRequestsPerServer

OfflineSyncMaxConnectionsPerServer

OfflineSyncPerOrgMaxConnectionsPerServer

OutlookSyncMaxConnectionsPerServer

OutlookSyncPerOrgMaxConnectionsPerServer

In the present scenario, it is noticed that there exists multiple throttle settings that have an impact on the Outlook Client sync behavior. Since the aim is to throttle all Outlook Client sync jobs, hence the settings that are important are

OutlookSyncPerOrgMaxConnectionsPerServer and OutlookSyncMaxConnectionsPerServer.

The kind of interaction that will take place between the two settings is described through the following coding:

if ( (_organizationMax

>= 0 && organizationCount >= _organizationMax)

|| (_serverMax >= 0 && _totalCount >= _serverMax) )

// reject job request

else

// execute job request

The fourth step is to setting the throttle settings

Since all the throttle settings are set to -1, therefore this indicates that there is no throttling. Throttling is only enabled when the value is configured to 0 or higher. If a value of 0 is used then it will disable all the requests, therefore in this scenario 1 will be used as a test value. The next step is to figure out if one should throttle requests Per Organization or Per Server. For instance if there is three organizations then the maximum number of simultaneous requests for the entire Microsoft Dynamics CRM server would be 3 if the test value of 1 is used. Using this particular logic, one will be able to decide if this request is to be rejected:

$settings. OutlookSyncMaxConnectionsPerServer = -1

$settings. OutlookSyncPerOrgMaxConnectionsPerServer = 1

Set-CrmSetting -Setting $settings

This is the overall process for establishing throttling process as part of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.…

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Current Technology News

How’s Your Technology?

Today, a business owner has a myriad of options when it comes to choices for technology. Some of the very coolest stuff comes in the form of wireless computers for medical and dental practices to increase the mobility of staff and patients. There is nothing more cool than checking in to your doctor’s office and signing in on a tablet that is handed to you. You know that this is an office that keeps up with technology. If you are in your doctor’s office, this helps to reassure you that most likely this doctor has the latest x-rays, latest equipment, and a higher knowledge level than the doctor down the street. The same goes for your dry cleaners – my guys now ONLY offer organic dry cleaning. When you walk in their shop, they just ask for your phone number, punch it into a keyboard, and the clothes come spinning around to you while they swipe your credit card. This is a very efficient system that smacks of technology and leaves you feeling warm and cozy with your organically cleaned clothes. A win-win for all!
What about the low-tech guy out there? Is there such a thing these days? Has technology taken over every industry and left us dependent on software to run our businesses? I believe there will always be room for those small niche businesses that run a low tech approach. One of the best examples I can think of is the shoe repair guy – the cobbler if you will. The guy I use only has hand tools which look like, and possibly were, made in the 1700’s. But it works for him! You walk into his shop and smell the leather everywhere. You pay only in cash since he has no credit card machine and no cash register… wait a minute, is this guy paying taxes? Anyway, his work is top notch but he has no need for high tech in his business since he is the only employee and pure skill is how he develops his business. His place is chock full of bags of repaired (and paid for) shoes. He could care less when, or if, the customer picks them up since he insists on prepayment. This is a guy who likely will never sell his business because he is not busy enough to share in the action and never will be.
If you compare these two paragraphs and think about third world countries, just imagine the opportunities there for a second career – the stuff we keep talking about. They have low to no technology right now, just imagine where they will be in five or ten years… hmmm can you hear opportunity knocking on your door yet?…