How Can Vacuum Cleaners Affect Your Health?

It is clear that vacuum cleaners have saved us from a lot of effort and time wasted on cleaning our houses. Still, some researches have demonstrated that using this electric appliance too much can decrease the quality of the air we breathe.

It appears that the vacuum cleaner expels to the environment particles and microorganisms which are already found in the domestic dust and which the filters are not able to retain.

These data should be taken into consideration if you or someone in the house suffers of any respiratory disease, like asthma, allergy, rhinitis (inflammation of the nose or its mucous membrane) or conjunctivitis. Read More »

Pinball Easter Egg

We haven’t had an Windows Easter Egg for quite a while, probably because Bill Gates (or rather the US Government – major buyers of Microsoft products) banned them. Anyway, for those of you who are new to this malarkey, Easter Eggs are hidden features inside programs, usually put there by mischievous or bored programmers. Some of them like this one in the Windows game 3D Pinball is probably a programming ‘tool’ that was forgotten or left behind when the game was released.

So here’s how it works, launch the game by going to Start > Programs > Games then straight away type ‘hidden test’ (minus the quotes). Read More »

New OpenOffice Bug Discovered

A newly discovered vulnerability in the OpenOffice.org suite that could allow hackers to install malicious code on computers, and here’s the really worrying bit, it’s not just Windows, this also affects Mac and Linux users. This concerns version 2.0.4 and earlier (the most recent release,V2.3, is not affected) and it involves modified TIFF image files.

So far this loophole hasn’t been exploited ‘in the wild’ and it has only been tested on the Linux release, but it follows hard on the heels of a real world infection called ‘Badbunny’ that has been found on Mac, Windows and Linux PCs running OpenOffice. OpenOffice comes from the good guys of the software world, Read More »

Transformer USB Storage Drives

Since pretty much everything else has been Transformerized, it was only a matter of time before Transformer USB storage devices hit the shelves. Well here they are, available in two models, the 1 GB Autobot ($40), and the 2 GB Decepticon ($60). Why they made the Decepticon the larger of the storage capacities is a mystery to me. Probably because the money grubber that made them didn’t know who was good and who was bad. Those stupid greedy bastards. Autobots, transform and roll out!

Nokia N98 new threat to iPhone

Nokia N98 has been sighted on the net and will be released really soon according to Nokia France specification sheet. Despite it’s earlier claims that iPhone is no threat to lucrative NSeries smartphone multimedia computer business, Nokia was really frightened by it and started scrambling for an answer literary the next day. Result of that is new Nokia N98 who really looks like Apple iPhone, but when you look at specifications there is huge advantage over iPhone. So we might look at new mobile phone war in which only consumer can benefit by better products and new technologies. Read More »

DivX Goes Mobile

DivX, the super-efficient compression technology and codec that brings high quality video to your PC and DVD player is about to make an appearance on your mobile phone. For phones that are not DivX certified (there’s a list of certified phones on the website) simply download the DivX Mobile Player onto your Windows mobile device, Windows PC or Symbian phone and use it to convert videos to DivX format and transfer and play movies on your phone. There’s a simple to follow installation guide covering a range of devices and systems. It’s still in beta form but by all accounts it is stable and works well. While you are at it you can browse a beta version of a video content website on your phone at mm.divx.com.

Presenting Google

Google has just added a presentation app to its free Google Docs online office suite. Comparisons between Google Presentations formerly known as ‘Presently’ and Microsoft PowerPoint are inevitable and here you have to be a bit careful, bearing in mind that it is a freebie. It is quite basic and lacks many of the eye-catching features of PP but it does the job, and because it is online it allows easy collaboration, so that two or more people can work on and share a project. If you are already a Google Docs user you will find it on the New menu, otherwise signup and find out what all the fuss is about at: http://docs.google.com/

Noxon 2 links iPod and 10,000 Radio Stations

If you were wondering what else could be crammed into an iPod dock then how about 10,000 Internet radio stations? It’s an impressive feat though the Noxon 2 Radio really doesn’t give much away, but the little rubber-duck antenna on the back might tell you something. It’s has built-in Wi-FI and once provided with the WEP or WPA key for your wireless router (or wired Ethernet LAN) it goes hunting for streamed web radio stations (most formats) and pod casts. Normally setup on this type of widget can be a chore but this one was completely painless and it was ready to run in just a couple of minutes.

After it has it’s finished scanning you can select a station by name, genre, country and half a dozen other criteria from the backlit display on the front. Plug an iPod into the dock on the top and you can listen to that with all of its functions (though strangely not ‘Shuffle’ play) controllable through a remote handset. Read More »