AltaVista's Babel Fish Translation Service

TIP OF THE DAY

AltaVista's Babel Fish Translation Service

http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn

AltaVista Babel Fish Translation enables you to translate short passages of text or entire Web sites among 19 pairs of languages.

As an automatic translator, Babel Fish works best when the text you wish to translate uses proper grammar. Slang, misspelled words, poorly placed punctuation and complex or lengthy sentences can all cause a page to be translated incorrectly. Expect Babel Fish to allow you to grasp the general intent of the original, not to produce a polished translation.

To Translate Your Own Text

1. Type or paste text into the "Translate a block of text" text box.
2. Select the language pair from the list (for example, English to French).
3. Click the Translate button.
4. Babel Fish translates text up to about 150 words at a time

Should Computers be Turned Off at Night?

TIP OF THE DAY

Should Computers be Turned Off at Night?

Ken Colburn of Data Doctors answers:

Q: I have heard several different answers to this question and I don't know what to believe. Is it better to leave my computer running or shut it off?

A: The debate concerning this question has been raging since the beginning of (computer) time. The answer has more to do with the type of computer you use, your usage patterns and your concern for your power bill.

Manufacturers of specific computer components such as hard drives and power supplies have used MTBF ratings (Mean Time Between Failure) to express the life cycle of their products. Power supplies have published ratings such as 50,000 hours (just under 6 years) and hard drive ratings have been 300,000 hour (just over 34 years) or higher.

Remember, millions of computers are running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Virtually every network server from the small business to the largest airline to every government agency is running constantly and they use the same basic components as the average user. But just because we know that the components are capable of running all of the time does not mean they should.

Laptops, for instance, have a higher likelihood of heat related problems because they have very limited ventilation systems. In addition to the obvious battery power savings, shutting them down when they are not being used (for long stretches of time) will allow them to run cooler and generally more efficiently.

If you use your computer constantly throughout the day, leaving it on during the day and turning it off at night makes perfect sense. If you only use it to check your e-mail once in a while, turn it on when you need it and turn it off when you don't.

If you are like me and have a high-speed cable modem, get tons of e-mail, and hate to wait for Windows to boot, leaving your computer on all the time will probably increase your quality of life.

If saving electricity is your concern, then the monitor is your biggest enemy. Your display screen is the biggest single power consumer, so you can simply turn it off whenever you are not using the computer, but leave the computer itself on so you don't have to wait as long when you want to use it.

A basic metering of new computers at Iowa State University found that the average computer running 'all the time' cost about $65 per year. If you were to shut your monitor off on nights and weekends but leave the computer running, the cost would drop to about $40 per year. If you turn everything off at night and on weekends, the cost would drop to about $21 per year.

Power-saving systems are now a part of virtually every computer and operating system, which typically will put your computer and monitor in 'sleep mode', which in turn saves electricity. As you can see, there is no one answer for this question, but there are a few absolutes for those that plan to keep their computers running all the time.

The first is to invest in a good surge protector with a UL 1449 rating or, better yet, a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) since the likelihood of a power related issue increases with the length of time that your computer is running.

The second is to always shut down and unplug your computer during an electrical storm. There is no way for your computer to get hit if it is not plugged in - and it's cheap protection!

Online PDF Conversion

TIP OF THE DAY

Online PDF Conversion

http://www.k2pdf.com/convert.html

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat , K2PDF.COM is a FREE online web-based document conversion service of Portable Document Format (PDF) files provided by Kinati Network Inc.  It will convert K2PDF.COM supported documents (.doc/.xls/.ppt/.rtf/.txt ONLY, smaller than 1 megabyte) to PDF format without the installation and configuration of any special software.  Submit documents from your web browser and you will receive an email with a secure link to retrieve your PDF converted file. All files converted by K2PDF.COM can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat? software.

Archiving for the Ages

TIP OF THE DAY

Archiving for the Ages

Excerpted from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1401541,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585

Archiving for the Ages
By Bill Howard
December 4, 2003

Wondering what to do with all the photos, 8-mm movies, and financial records you've got scattered about your house or office? How do you back them up? How do you convert analog images to digital to stop the aging process? Can you trust digital backups? Here are a few approaches.

For the near term, you don't have to worry about file formats changing or CDs becoming obsolete, so just back up everything that's already digital to CDs or DVDs. Store one copy off-site, say at your office or in a safe-deposit box. Also, put the most important data on a home PC, so you have an easy recovery method. The biggest immediate dangers to data are user error and viruses.

For the long term?meaning 5 to 50 years?you must choose your media and formats carefully. Microsoft Office formats will still be around, or readily translatable, as will JPEG and TIFF for photos and PDF for documents. Video formats are in greater flux, but for now you'll be fine with MPEG-2 or the emerging and superior MPEG-4.

Now's the time to switch to recordable DVD from CD for backups. Buy a multiformat drive that supports "plus" and "dash" DVD media, and use only branded media; the same advice holds true for CDs. Cheap media can be troublesome. High-quality media will last a lifetime. That said, a cautious person would copy onto a new format every ten years; this means your early-1990s CD-Rs are about due for replacement.

For miscellaneous paper documents, the best way to archive is with a sheet-feeder scanner. Unless you're a real type A, start with the most important documents, meaning your year-end brokerage statements, your tax records, and a couple examples of your kids' drawings and homework from each year. Scan at 300 dpi and use PDF as the output format.

If you have traditional film photos, scan your favorites and have a photo service scan the negatives of your very favorites. I get asked this question a lot: "Isn't there someplace cheap I can get all my negatives scanned?" Nope. In massive quantities, you'd be lucky to get down to a buck a frame for high-quality scans. If you really must digitize all your prints, buy or borrow one of HP's flatbed scanners with a 4-by-6 print feeder, or a Visioneer auto-feeding scanner such as the Visioneer Strobe XP 450 PDF, and set aside a weekend. Or invest $1,000 in a film scanner (not an attachment to a flatbed scanner) that has automatic dust and scratch removal.

What's the purpose of digitizing 500 rolls of prints unless you ID each picture? A better way is to pick the best half-dozen from each roll. (Tip for your next vacation: Think about capturing the one perfect picture as the memento you'll treasure ten years from now, which means getting yourself in the photo.)

The same goes for videos: There is no cheap commercial video-transfer service for archiving Dad's 8-mm movies. For videos, copy your analog (VHS, 8-mm, Hi8) footage to DVD in MPEG2 or maybe MPEG4 format. Don't bother editing the footage at the same time or you'll never finish.

If you want the highest quality, also dupe your analog tapes to new DV tapes. DV currently offers the best quality and is easier to edit. For PC capture, you'll need a video capture card to import analog video. Some DV camcorders have analog capture: You can dupe analog tapes directly or use your DV camcorder as a pass-through (via its FireWire cable) to your PC. Also consider direct-to-DVD recorders such as the HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000.

Google Alert

TIP OF THE DAY

Google Alert

http://www.googlealert.com/

This site lets you create up to five* searches that are run at an interval you set and any NEW results are emailed to you.  It has tremendous customization available.  If there's a search you are running in Google periodically looking for new results, this site is for you.  Give it a try.  I'm surprised Google doesn't already contain this feature.  There are commercial software programs out there that accomplish this same task but require you to (1) pay, (2) configure, and (3) are not easy to use.  This site is simple to navigate and works like a charm.  It is already included on the de la O & Marko Menu.

{WARNING -- Technobabble ahead:  The site even lets your create an RSS feed of your search results for browsing in your Newsreader}.

*Up to 5 searches per user ID, but it appears you can have unlimited user IDs tied to your email address, so there is really no limit as long as your create differing user IDs.