Battery Life Boosters

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Battery Life Boosters

Predicting battery life is a bigger challenge than taking good pictures, simply because the figure varies depending up on your particular camera, how much you review your shots on the LCD finder, how many pictures you take, what kind of media you're using, how much you use your internal flash, what type of batteries you're using, and what the temperature is (batteries drain faster in the cold).

Here's how to maximize your battery life:

• Short reviews: Most digital cameras let you set how long the LCD stays on for review after a shot is taken. Choose the briefest setting. You can always review an individual show for a longer period if need be.
• Flash with care: Built-in flash units reduce battery life by half. Use an accessory flash if possible.
• Battery choices:   AA Rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are cheaper in the long run, but be sure to keep them charged.  They lose power constantly and quickly when out of the recharger.  Lithium Ion proprietary batteries from the manufacturer generally have most power and hold their charge out of the charger much better, but are very expensive to replace.  If you are using disposables, AA lithium batteries tend to last longer than other battery types, so if you use these, you can extend the active life of your shooting session before replacements are necessary. They also handle cold weather better. You should always carry at least one set of extra AA batteries (more if you shoot a lot).

Source: Dummies.com

Segmenting a drive boosts performance

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Segmenting a drive boosts performance

Segmenting a drive boosts performance
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8023920.htm
Peggy Rogers/ Ms. Computer

Portions of fast food are not the only things to be supersized. New hard drives have gone from spacious to huge.

For instance, I recently bought a computer with two internal drives, one of 233 and the other of 119 gigabytes. The former is 10 times bigger than the drive of a few years ago.

If you leave large drives of 60 to 80 GB or more as they are, its easy to get one big snarl of programs, hardware drivers, operating system, operating memory, user-created files and multimedia files.

The best way to handle large drives is to partition them -- create discrete segments that then appear and act as different drives -- and place like content in each segment. Instead of having just a C: drive, youll have one or more new drives, designated with different letters and appearing in My Computer as different drives.

Dividing up a drive can help you more easily decide which segment or segments need backing up and how often. For instance, if you place your programs in one partition and your data in another, you may decide to backup just the data partition or back it up more frequently because it will change faster. You could spend a day backing up an entire 233 GB drive. A backup without compression would consume 359 CDs or 56 DVDs, if thats what you use to safely store an offsite copy.

Meanwhile, if you partition a drive by content, you can more easily find the files or folders youre looking for. Defragmenting only the fastest changing partition(s) can also go faster. Additionally, if you leave only your operating system on the first, C: partition -- partitioning your hard drive before starting to install programs and create data -- your Windows computer will likely start and run faster.

There are several good partition programs for Windows that make the task easy, even for beginners. The programs guide users through the entire process, showing you how large your drive is, asking how many partitions you want to make and how large you want to make each. You can name each and designate a letter. Plan beforehand.

If youre fearful of a mistake, dont be. Good partition programs allow you, at any time, to change the amount of space you devote to each partition or even undo the partitioning.

Among the top programs are Acronis PartitionExpert ( www.acronis.com), V Communications Partition Commander ( www.v-com.com) and Symantecs PartitionMagic ( www.symantec.com).

You can divide the partitions any way you want. Out of my 233 GB drive, I left the C: partition for both operating system and programs. Unfortunately, the easiest thing was to keep the OS and programs together because I had already installed several programs alongside Windows before I did the partitioning. I can, however, remove and reinstall the programs on a new partition. Its best to install partitioning software first.

On the same drive, I created a second partition for data files that I create. You can move special folders like My Documents and My Pictures by right-clicking on them and choosing Properties. Then click on Target and Find Target to change their drive location. A third partition is for copies of my working files in case the originals get corrupted and a fourth partition for multimedia files such as music, photos and video.

I created a small, fifth partition of 6 GB to leave empty, and named the drive Swapfile. What is it? When RAM memory runs out, Windows computers take a chunk of hard drive -- a swap or paging file -- and swap it in as virtual memory.

This hard-drive memory is already significantly slower than RAM memory. If you let Windows automatically create and constantly change the size of the swapfile on the C: drive, which it does by default, it will have to compete with other contents to find enough empty space for memory.

To set up the paging file on an empty, designated partition, go to www.microsoft.com, click on Support and then Knowledge Base. Under Search For, type the file number 307886.

Creating In-Document Cross-References in Word

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Creating In-Document Cross-References in Word

Creating a cross-reference within a Word document to another section of your document is a simple matter of typing some fixed text and then inserting a reference to the item. You can make a cross-reference to a page, a foot or end note, paragraph number, etc. Here's how:

1. Place your cursor where you want the cross-reference to appear, and then type an introductory text. For example, you might write, "For more information, see." Make sure your cursor ends up at the exact spot where you want the cross-reference inserted.
2. Choose Insert, Reference, Cross-reference. The Cross-reference dialog box appears.
3. Select the general reference category in the Reference type drop-down list. The Insert Reference To and For Which list changes, depending on the reference type that you select.
4. Select an option for the Insert References To drop-down list to specify the information from the reference category that should be inserted in the cross-reference. Note that each reference category contains a Page Number option with which you can refer to the page where the reference item occurs.
5. Specify the exact reference that you want from the For Which list. For example if you choose Number Item as the reference type, and the Insert Reference to is Paragraph Number, the For Which Numbered Item list then contains a list of all automatic paragraph numbers in the document.
6. Select options. If you check the Insert as hyperlink option, double-clicking on the reference will jump you the the referenced link. You can also click on the Include above/below to add the words to the reference depending on whether the referenced material is above or below the cross-reference. 
7. Choose Insert. The Cross-reference dialog box remains open so that you can add more info to your reference.
8. When you're finished, close the Cross-reference dialog box.

Source: Dummies.com

Buying a Rug Online

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Buying a Rug Online

A Saavier Search for a Magic Carpet

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/technology/circuits/22shopp.html
By MICHELLE SLATALLA

Published: January 22, 2004

HE greatest challenge the average shopper with a living room will face in a lifetime can be summed up in two words: rug merchant.

On one hand, the phrase conjures images of tall stacks of grand Persian Sultanabads, intricately woven Kermans and luxurious antique Tabrizes, all accompanied by mysterious pedigrees and hardy rug assistants who seem only too happy to unroll them for inspection.

But "rug merchant" also invokes nerve-racking images of shop windows that proclaim: "Going Out of Business." Anytime I see a rug store with a banner that says "Eighty Percent Off - One Day Only," I'd rather try to find a bargain in a Times Square electronics store.

So for years I took the easy way out. I bought shoes.

Then one day last week I had an epiphany of Joycean proportions. I suddenly saw the living room for what it was, a loveseat adrift on a scrap of fabric roughly the size of a face cloth. I called that a rug?

I could have ignored this crisis. I could have walked past the face cloth to go pay the bills from last month's credit card purchases. Instead, I immediately drove over to the local rug store, armed with nothing more than the vague goal of making my living room look like one of those glossy shelter magazine pictures that feature the muffled elegance of an age-mellowed Oushak.

An hour later, I came out shaken. Prices for room-size rugs ranged from $4,500 to $46,000, and I had no idea why. And what was an Oushak, anyway? Still, I took home three rugs on approval - one good test of whether a rug store is reputable is whether you can try out a carpet at home without having to purchase it first - and all of them looked good.

I only wished I knew why or whether they were worth more than the similarly sized hand-knotted New Zealand wool rug I'd seen for $1,300 at potterybarn.com. They were prettier, but what was that worth?

If not for the Internet, I would still be floundering. Luckily, I quickly found a number of rug information sites, the best among them being the amazingly detailed spongobongo.com, where a longtime rug collector, Barry O'Connell, has meticulously amassed information about every kind of rug imaginable that is native to the Middle East or Far East. So I phoned Mr. O'Connell, the associate editor of the online journal Oriental Rug Review (www.rugreview.com) to ask him how to evaluate the rugs in my living room, which included one made in Pakistan that I was really starting to like.

"First, use the online sites to do some research," he said. "See which kinds of rugs you like and which rugs you can afford. Then you buy from a reputable dealer who does not have 'Going Out of Business' sales every week." From Mr. O'Connell's "Trusted Resources" list, I found dealers who sell online, like cyberrugs.com (which specializes in Art Deco rugs), internetrugs.com (which has a large selection of high-quality new rugs) and c-innercircle.com (which specializes in new and antique authentic Persian and Iranian rugs).

At another site, called Antique Rugs Studio, I found a list of high-end dealers who sell antique rugs (www.antique-rugs-studio.com/antique_dealers_links.htm), which were generally made no later than the early 1900's, before synthetic dyes were widely used.

I got carried away clicking on little digital images of beautiful rugs at sites like www.moheban.com, www.pasargadcarpets.com and markarianantiquerugs.com. By then I knew that the Hereke carpet hailed from the north shore of Izmit Bay in Turkey, the Oushak from northwest Turkey, and that both were too far expensive for me.

Now descriptions like machine-made (a category that includes rugs from manufacturers like karastan.com and couristan.com), hand-tufted (pile carpets made with a gun-tufting tool), handwoven (hand-loomed flat weaves like kilims) and hand-knotted (what we traditionally think of when we hear the phrase "Oriental rug") made sense.

I also learned that the best rugs are wool, use vegetable dyes and have denser concentrations of knots than lesser rugs. Prices for room-size rugs can range from $50 for a machine-made synthetic to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a hand-knotted antique in excellent shape.

So what about the three rugs, one of which I now knew I loved with all my heart, that I had brought home?

Allen Arthur, an Atlanta dealer who operates Cyberrugs.com, explained the difference between new and old hand-knotted rugs. "New rugs are mainly reproductions of traditional designs and are not investments," he said. "The exception is new rugs with designs that are being woven in the same original location, in the same tradition and by the same people who have always done them."

Translation: the Pakistani rug I loved probably would not hold its value. For rugs like those, the way to compare prices is by the cost per square foot. The highest-priced new rugs in that category can cost from than $50 to $100 per square foot; the rugs I had on approval cost roughly $75 per square foot.

Had the rug betrayed my love?

"They're expensive because they're coming from certain manufacturers who are exactly on top of what the market wants," Mr. O'Connell said. "It takes months to make a rug, and to be able to get them in time to market, in the shades and colors and designs that are fashionable, is a very expensive thing."

Among the best buys in new rugs, Mr. O'Connell said, are Iranian rugs that have become widely available since 2000, when the United States government lifted a 13-year embargo against importation.

So should I break up with my current rug in favor of a new Iranian or a semi-antique Persian rug?

Not necessarily, said Emmett Eiland, a dealer in Berkeley, Calif., who sells online at Internetrugs.com. "There's no reason to distrust a new rug," said Mr. Eiland, the author of "Oriental Rugs Today: A Guide to the Best New Carpets From the East," (Berkeley Hills Books, 2003). "The best new rugs with natural dyes are better-looking and better investments than semi-antiques made with synthetic dyes and machine-spun wools."

I took the rugs back to the store.

But having learned so much online, I wasn't going to give up now. I brought home a semi-antique Heriz from another store.

My behavior was typical of shoppers who do online research. Dealers say that while few buyers actually purchase rugs from their sites without touching or seeing them, many come into a store armed with information from the Internet that makes their search more specific.

But I took the Heriz back, too.

Then I went back to the first store and brought home the rug I loved.

It still loved me back.

I haven't made up my mind. But I must say this has turned out to be much more fun than paying last month's bills.

Emailing attachments in our Virus-Infected World

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Emailing attachments in our Virus-Infected World

Q: I have heard you recommend that people should not send or receive attachments. In business, what's a practical alternative? I send documents to suppliers, co-workers, and customers every day.

A: When it comes to e-mail file attachments, my general advice is to never open them unless you know specifically what it is, even if it is from someone you trust. Today's worms often 'spoof' the return address, so you can't ever trust that the listed sender was actually the real sender.

Blind faith on the Internet is a recipe for disaster!

The recent MyDoom worm outbreak (which has become the fastest spreading ever... for now!) is just another great example of why being suspicious about any file attachment is important. The individual(s) that crafted this attack used a form of social engineering to fool users into thinking that a message was being returned because it could not be delivered. Most victims assumed that the message was something that they had sent and their curiosity got the best of them.

When I say 'unless you know specifically what it is,' I mean, you have to have prior knowledge from an earlier communication or some reasonable expectation that the file is coming.

In business, it is very difficult to refrain from using file attachments as you well know, but how you send them could be very helpful for you and your recipient. For instance, just because the information that you want to send is in a Word document, it doesn't mean that you need to send the actual document. Whenever possible, copy the text from the document and paste into the body of the message or use Adobe.Acrobat to generate a .pdf file.

Calling someone to let them know that a valid file attachment is coming can also help, but it's better to be explicit in the message so that it can be identified clearly at a later date. If the recipient is being sent an attachment for the first time, consider sending two messages to them. The first could explain what you intend to send and that the attachment will be on the next message and the second would have the attachment with some specific reference to the first message so that the recipient would have no question about its validity.

Example: Jennifer, I will be sending you a file attachment named Jones.doc with the numbers for the 'Jones' account in the next message.

Not only would this make it very clear to your recipient that the attachment was intended, it would also show that you have a great deal of concern for them and that you don't send files irresponsibly. If you exchange attachments often with associates, just remember to include specific information in the message body and subject line about the attachment or the specifics of the project.

Since most mass-mailing worms use very generic messages and subject lines, don't make your message look suspicious. For instance, subject lines like 'Hi,' 'Hello,' and 'Here is the file' are commonly found in today's worms, so avoid them. Take some time to 'craft' the message using proper punctuation and spelling - many worms are created in foreign countries and use 'bloken Engrish.' Be specific in the subject line with information that could only be known by the sender and the recipient.

I usually like to try and be short and sweet with my e-mail messages, but when it comes to messages with attachments, the more information you can include, the better!
Source: Ken Colburn of Data Doctors