REPAIR NOTEBOOKS YOURSELF WITH A SCREWDRIVER AND SOME PATIENCE

When it’s time to replace a screen or a noisy fan, or add more memory or hard drive space, don’t automatically race to the professionals with your laptop. With the proper instructions, it’s possible to do a lot of this kind of work yourself. Websites like www.insidemylaptop.com or www.ifixit.com provide step-by-step descriptions with photos that can help anyone figure out their computer. The sites also include notes on special projects, like how to turn an old notebook display into a digital picture frame.

5 Reasons Why you should do it yourself..?

1. COST:  Save some cash! Repairing your laptop yourself is far less expensive versus taking it to a repair shop or buying a new laptop. 

2. EFFICIENT: It is really easy to repair your laptop – Especially with online available step-by-step guides and videos. 

3. TIME: Your time is worth money, without a functioning laptop you’re probably losing that valuable time due to inconvenience. Sending your laptop for repairs can take days, even weeks! You’ll have the old part out and the new part installed in under 20 minutes. 

4. STREET CRED: It is really impressive. All of your friends will be in awe of your computer repair mastery. (Until they realize they can do it, too!) 

5. TRUST: You don’t want an unreliable repair man tinkering around your laptop. We've heard a lot of horror stories of customers taking their laptops in just to have the part repaired and getting their laptops back completely wiped of everything. These are just a few reasons why you should replace your broken, cracked or damaged laptop part yourself! 

10 Mind Blowing Future Technologies.

From human organ printing to hologram TV, here are 10 technologies that come straight from the future.

10. Printing Human Organs: 3D Bio printer already capable of growing arteries, hearts, teeth and bones possible within 10 years. Dying patients could someday receive a 3D-printed organ made from their own cells rather than wait on long lists for the short supply of organ transplants. Such a futuristic dream remains far from reality, but university labs and private companies have already taken the first careful steps by using 3D-printing technology to build tiny chunks of organs. Regenerative medicine has already implanted lab-grown skin, tracheas and bladders into patients — body parts grown slowly through a combination of artificial scaffolds and living human cells. By comparison, 3D-printing technology offers both greater speed and computer-guided precision in printing living cells layer by layer to make replacement skin, body parts and perhaps eventually organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys. Tiny kidneys are world's first 3D printed living organs.
Two years ago, Anthony Atala took to the stage at TED and showed the world that human organs could be 3D printed. Now, a team from eastern China has successfully printed a series of living kidneys. This is a huge step forward in the quest for 3D printed replacement organs.

9. Big Dog: Dynamically Stable quadruped robot was created in 2005 by Boston Dynamics, NASA and Harvard. BigDog is a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by an engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog has four legs that are articulated like an animal’s, with compliant elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs. BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, climbs muddy hiking trails, walks in snow and water, and carries 340 lb load.

8. Thought Controlled Prosthetics: Research Organisation is US is currently testing robotics limbs to be controlled by brain via an implanted chip. A team of scientists are getting closer to the holy grail of brain-powered prosthetics by developing the first advanced-movement prosthetic leg that communicates with the wearer’s mind.
The first Mind-Controlled Bionic Leg used by Zac Vawter and now he’s the “test pilot” for the first bionic leg that can complete tasks like going up stairs or down slopes, all controlled by Vawter’s mind.

7. Wireless Power: Systems that can deliver Electricity to devices without the need for wires were showcased back in 2008. Wireless power or wireless energy transmission is the transmission of electrical energy from a power source to an electrical load without man-made conductors. Wireless transmission is useful in cases where interconnecting wires are inconvenient, hazardous, or impossible. The problem of wireless power transmission differs from that of wireless telecommunications, such as radio. In the latter, the proportion of energy received becomes critical only if it is too low for the signal to be distinguished from the background noise. With wireless power, efficiency is the more significant parameter. A large part of the energy sent out by the generating plant must arrive at the receiver or receivers to make the system economical.

6. Retinal Implants: Researchers at Germany's Tuebingen University successfully tested implants allowed blind peoples to see shapes and objects. Retinal implant restores partial sight to blind people. Some previously blind patients fitted with retinal implant could read signs, tell the time and distinguish white wine from red Blind people have described smiles on friendly faces, the food on their plates, and household objects from telephones to dustbins, after surgeons fitted them with electronic chips to partially restore their vision.

5. Hologram TV: With Prototypes unveiled back in 2006, Japanese Broadcaster NHK plans household hologram TVs in 2017. New methods for producing color holographic video are here, and they could lead to cheaper, higher res and more energy efficient TVs. Daniel Smalley, a researcher at MIT, built a holographic display with about the same resolution as a standard-definition TV, which is able to depict motion because it updates its image 30 times a second. The display is run by an optical chip that Smalley made in his lab for about $10. If the process can be perfected, it will be much more efficient than LCD technology and has the potential to change how TVs are made.

4. Cloaking Devices: Using crystals and metamaterials, scientists in the UK successfully managed to make a paperclip 'invisible'. A cloaking device is a theoretical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. However over the entire spectrum, cloaking device scatters more than the uncloaked object. Metamaterials are used to make objects with refractive indices between zero and 1. The team used metamaterials to make their cloaking device have gradually varying refractive indices -- from 1 on the outside of the device, decreasing to zero in the center. The result is that microwave light subtly bends around the device and is able to reform on the other side, albeit with some detectable distortion.

3. Hover Cars: Israeli company currently testing unmanned aerial vehicle for battlefield evacuations. A flying car is a hypothetical personal aircraft that provides door-to-door aerial transportation (e.g., from home to work or to the supermarket) as conveniently as a car and without the requirement for roads, runways or other specially-prepared operating areas. Such aircraft lack any visible means of propulsion (unlike fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters) so they can be operated at urban areas, close to buildings, people and other obstructions. Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk, Moller Skycar M400, Terrafugia TF-X are some already tested.

2. Exoskeleton: Exoskeletons that can enhance human ability to run, jump and carry heavy loads are into their final testing stages. Definition an exoskeleton is a skeleton on the outside of the body. One example of an exoskeleton is the hard outer covering that makes up the skeleton of many insects. However, today there is a new invention that claims the name of "exoskeleton". Exoskeletons for human performance augmentation is a new type of body army being developed for soldiers that will significantly increase their capacity. An exoskeleton will allow you to carry more without feeling the weight, and move faster too.

1. Force Fields: The UK Military has successfully tested 'force fields' (Effectively electro-magnetic pulses) to protect military vehicles. While EMP weapons are generally considered non-lethal, they could easily kill people if they were directed towards particular targets. If an EMP knocked out a hospital's electricity, for example, any patient on life support would die immediately. An EMP weapon could also neutralize vehicles, including aircraft, causing catastrophic accidents.
In the end, the most far-reaching effect of an e-bomb could be psychological. A full-scale EMP attack in a developed country would instantly bring modern life to a screeching halt. There would be plenty of survivors, but they would find themselves in a very different world.

Violent games make you cheat and eat chocolate.

Could be worse........

An international team of researchers has found playing violent video games not only increases aggression but can also cause players to cheat and eat more chocolate. Study author Brad Bushman found that the effects were strongest in teen participants who scored high on a scale for "moral disengagement." Moral disengagement is the ability for a person to convince himself or herself that ethics do not apply in a certain situation.

Of course, there is no definition of the word "ethics" but apparently, it means that people are more likely to have affairs and eat more chocolate. Everyone knows they eat a lot of chocolate in hell.

The study was based in Italy where they gave 170 teenagers playing a violent video game, such as Grand Theft Auto III, or a non-violent game like Mini-golf 3D, for a total of 45 minutes. Playing the violent video game Grand Theft Auto made teenagers more aggressive, more dishonest and lowered their self control.

As the teens played, a bowl with chocolate was placed next to the gaming console. The participants were told they could eat the candy, but warned eating too much in a short time span was unhealthy. The kids who played the violent games ate over three times as much choc as the other teens. Although we would have thought, a more active game would have resulted in a bigger appetite.

After their gaming session, the teens were given a 10-item logic test in which they would get one ticket for a prize raffle for each question they got correct. After finding out how many answers they got right, the teens were told to take the appropriate number of tickets out of an envelope while not being watched.
According to Red-orbit, knowing exactly how many tickets were in the envelope, the researchers could later figure out if a participant had taken more than they had earned. Violent game players cheated about eight times more often than did those who played a non-violent game.

The researchers also tested participants' level of aggression by having them play a game with an unseen fictional "partner" for the chance to blast the loser with a loud noise through headphones. They found violent game players chose to blast their fictitious partners with louder noises that lasted longer than those who played non-violent games.

Bushman said that few teens were unaffected by violent video games, but this study helps us address the question of who is most likely to be affected. The effects were seen among both male and female participants. Even girls were more likely to eat extra chocolate, to cheat, and to act aggressively when they played Grand Theft Auto versus the mini golf or pinball game. 

E-marketing Tools you must have

1. It’s All About Keywords
Choosing the right keywords for your site is the first step to effective marketing online. Basically we are all looking for quality leads on our website. A keyword is what a customer types into Google to conduct a search for something they are looking for. WordTracker provides you with the amount of times a keyword has been searched on in the last 24 hours. Once you know what the top keywords for your business are, you can use them on your website to attract the right leads from search engines and for building emarketing campaigns with tools like Google Adwords.

2. Using Keywords Effectively On Your Website
Once you know which are the right keywords for your business, you then need to make sure you have used them effectively on your website. This tool analyses your homepage and lets you know what the density of a keyword is on your webpage. In general an effective keyword will return a 3% to 10% weighting on a web page.

3. Measuring Visitation To Your Website
Tracking how your site is performing is all important, especially if you start to invest time and money into building your website visitation and want to gain increased sales. Google Analytics is a tool that provides really useful information about visitation to your website. Using this tool from the beginning can help provide a before and after snap shot of each marketing initiative you try and can give you very quick feedback to let you know what is working and what is not.

4. Your Rating With Search Engines
Advanced Web Ranking is a tool that lets you know how you are performing on a variety of Search Engines for your keywords. It tracks where you are ranked for a keyword, and then each time you ask it to trawl through the Search Engines it lets you know whether your ranking has improved or not. This helps you monitor any Search Engine Optimisation that you may do to your website. Please note: Some Search Engines do not like you using this tool, and some forbid its use, please research the Search Engine guidelines thoroughly before using this service.

5. Helping Search Engines Find All Of Your Web Pages
This tool trawls through your website and provides an XML sitemap. An XML sitemap is useful for listing on search engines like Google and Yahoo to make sure they have indexed all of your website pages. Doing this can help with your free listings on search engines and is recommended, although you may need the assistance of a website developer to complete this for you. This tool also provides you a running count of pages, provides a text-based URL list and an XML sitemap you can import straight into your site.

6. Advertising Your Site Online
Google ADWords is a tool that provides promotional listings on Google. These are the listings you see on the right hand side of the page when you conduct a search on Google. These listings are on a ‘pay per click’ basis, i.e. you are charged every time someone clicks on your ADWords link. You can set your account to a monthly limit to make sure you do not exceed your budget. The amount charged is based on a bidding system with popular keywords costing more than other keywords. The trick with this tool is to find the right words with Wordtracker (or similar) for your business that not many of your competitors are using, hence a lower 'pay per click' rate.

7. Setting Up An Affiliate Network
Clix Galore is a large affiliate network comprising over 7500+ Merchants and many ten of thousands of Affiliates across five networks in the USA, UK, Japan, Australia and India. Like Google AdWords it runs 'pay for performance/click' internet advertising solutions for online business Merchants. This means that you only pay clixGalore when a person makes a purchase, completes a lead form or clicks on a banner. This flexibility provides Merchants with a cost effective promotions model to attract targeted, high quality customers. For businesses seeking track able results, clix Galore Affiliate Marketing provides comprehensive management and advanced graphic reporting tools, coupled with state of the art tracking technology that allows you to take full control of your program whilst it rapidly grows with little or no maintenance.

8. Supporting Your Customers Online
Once you have attracted customers to your website it is important to ensure that they are supported through the purchasing process. Live Person offers services that provide customer support online including: live chat, email management, click-to-talk , and knowledge base (self-service) technology. Live Person’s solutions assist in increasing online sales, average order size and conversion rates, and assists in customer satisfaction.

9. Generating Leads To Your Website
Websites like Door One and Froogle allow you to post your products online with direct links back to your shopping cart. The advantages of these types of sites are that people search them for the ‘best deal’ on a particular product, so if you can be price competitive you can attract clicks through to your website. Additionally these sites generally have an established customer. Like ClixGalore and AdWords these sites tend to operate on a ‘pay per performance’ basis.

10. Direct Marketing To Your Customers
Once you have attracted customers to your website, the trick is to remind them to return and purchase again from you. Enews Manager is the ideal tool for this allowing you to send out regular email communications to your customers and track the response rates including how many clicked through to the website, which links they clicked and how many times. Using this tool in conjunction with a shopping cart you can quickly tell which products your customers are interested in.

20 social networking sites for entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals 

Biznik – A community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed.

Cofoundr – A community for entrepreneurs, programmers, designers, investors, and other individuals involved with starting new ventures.

E.Factor – An online community and virtual marketplace designed for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.

Ecademy –A business network for creating contacts and sharing knowledge.

Entrepreneur Connect – A community by Entrepreneur.com where professionals can network, communicate, and collaborate with others.

Fast Pitch – A business network where professionals can market their business and make connections.

Focus – A community focused on helping business decision makers and IT professionals make decisions.

JASEzone – A professional community where you can find potential clients and business partners.

LinkedIn – A professional network that allows you to be introduced to and collaborate with other professionals.

Networking for Professionals – A business network that combines online business networking and real-life events.

PartnerUp – A community connecting small business owners and entrepreneurs.

PerfectBusiness – A network of entrepreneurs, investors and business experts that encourages entrepreneurship and mutual success.

Plaxo – An enhanced address book tool for networking and staying in contact.

Ryze – A business networking community that allows users to organize themselves by interests, location, and current and past employers.

StartupNation – A community focused on the exchange of ideas between entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners.

Upspring – A social networking site for promotion and social networking.

XING – A European business network with more than 7 million members.

Young Entrepreneur – A forum-based site for entrepreneurs and small business owners who are passionate about promoting business for themselves and others.

Ziggs – A professional connection portal founded on the principles of professionalism and respect.

Posting on Facebook could be good for you. WHY.....?

With the rise of Facebook, many psychologists have turned their attention on the effects of using social media on things like happiness and self esteem. The results are mixed: although they’ve found that people are happier with more real-life friends compared with online friends, posting on Facebook can also have positive effects, like increasing your self-esteem. Well, here’s another point for the pro-Facebook camp. In this study, the researchers split the subjects into two groups. One group received no instructions, while the other was asked to post “more status updates than they usually post per week.” Both groups were given short daily surveys about their moods and feelings. The results showed that the students who posted more on Facebook experienced a decrease in feelings of loneliness, which the researchers attribute to feeling more connected with their friends.

Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness? An Online Social Networking Experiment.

“Online social networking is a pervasive but empirically understudied phenomenon. Strong public opinions on its consequences exist but are backed up by little empirical evidence and almost no causally-conclusive, experimental research. The current study tested the psychological effects of posting status updates on Facebook using an experimental design. For one week, participants in the experimental condition were asked to post more than they usually do, whereas participants in the control condition received no instructions. Participants added a lab “Research Profile” as a Facebook friend allowing for the objective documentation of protocol compliance, participants’ status updates, and friends’ responses. Results revealed (1) that the experimentally-induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e. responses) by friends.”

How to Use Facebook for Good Not Evil...?

1. Add some fun applications to your Facebook profile
There are some really cool ways to stay connected to people and hobbies you love just by adding an application to your page. Look for applications that can help you to keep track of family members. A good one will let you share family pages that you can post messages and family photos on. Some application like Happy Family,

2. Post positive comments on pictures and posts that your friends put up.
Many people use Facebook as a way to display their talents. Some people post regular updates about a particular topic, some people use photos as a way to display their interest in photography, and some people just use their Facebooks to keep their friends and family up to date with pictures and posts. Whatever your friends use their Facebook messages for, it always feels good to get a compliment.

3. Write notes that keep friends and family up to date on trips you are taking or endeavors you are taking on.
Facebook is a great medium to do if you don't have blog or wordpress accounts. If you have a blog and post updates on your blog, you can copy and paste those updates into a Facebook note and tag your friends in it. You can also post the link to your blog into the "share" bar so that Facebook world can go directly to your blog whenever you post something new.

4. Use Facebook to keep in touch with old friends and long-distance friends.
The only way to keep in touch used to be email, and before email, phone calls, and before phone calls -gasp- written letters. Often people will make friends at work or school that move away or go back to their hometown that isn't anywhere near close to you. Facebook is a great way to share pictures, chat, and "socialize" with long-distance and old friends. Of course this isn't as good as personal interaction, but it can be a good substitute until you can see your friend again.

5. Find and support causes through Facebook.
You can use Facebook to find volunteer opportunities in your community, for instance. Or support organizations such as environmental causes, the arts, political and religious---pretty much any cause one could imagine, and more.

20 tips for for using Windows 8.1

Now that we've all got over the shock of big, bright, animated tiles in Windows, Microsoft has released version 8.1 as a refinement of its vision of a unified multi-platform operating system. There are a few tweaks of note, both in its surface appearance and deeper down, and these tips will bring you right up to speed with what's new and updated in the latest operating system.

1. Use the Start button

Let's start with the Start button, reinstated in 8.1 after being omitted from Windows 8. It actually doesn't do much more than the old bottom-left hot corner did, but many will find it reassuring anyway -- click the Start button to bring up the Start screen (or to go back to the desktop), or right-click to access key system sections (such as the Control Panel and Task Manager).

2. Boot straight to the desktop

While we're on the topic of undoing all the changes Windows 8 brought about, let's talk about booting straight to the desktop, now possible in Windows 8.1 for those with an aversion to big sliding blocks of colour. Right-click on the desktop taskbar, choose Properties and then open up the Navigation tab -- tick the top option under the Start screen heading to boot to the desktop (and return to it when there are no apps open).

3. Customise the Start screen

If you are a fan of the Start screen, there are now more options for customising it -- you can name individual groups of shortcuts, access more shades of colour, and switch between three app tile sizes. Right-click on the Start screen and choose Customise to change group names and tile sizes; open the Settings charm and choose Personalise to access the wallpaper and colour options.

4. Make playlists from Bing

If you haven't already noticed, Microsoft is very keen on integrating its premier apps as closely as possible. Try searching for your favourite artist in Bing using the Internet Explorer Start screen app; with the results on display, open the Share charm. You'll notice there's a Music option there to create a playlist based on the artist you've searched for, which can come in handy when you're checking out the best new band of the week.

5. Check app sizes

Open up the Settings charm, then choose Change PC settings > Search and apps > App sizes. Windows 8.1 presents you with a list of your currently installed apps, with the biggest at the top -- this can be useful if you're looking to free up some space on your hard drive (or tablet's flash storage) and want to know what you can cut.

6. Use the Reading View

Windows 8.1 comes bundled with the all-new Internet Explorer 11, and if you're running it in Start screen mode you'll notice a chunky book icon on the right of the address bar when viewing certain pages. Click this icon to enter Reading View, where adverts and unnecessary paraphernalia are stripped away to leave only the content you care about. You can also send articles to the new Reading List app from the Share charm.

7. Get your libraries back

The File Explorer in Windows 8.1 isn't quite as keen on libraries (music, videos, photos and so on) as its predecessor. Open up File Explorer to find the newly renamed 'This PC' view, then choose View > Navigation pane > Show libraries to bring them back on the left-hand side.

8. Create a lock screen slideshow

One of the neat new features in Windows 8.1 is the ability to set up a slideshow of pictures on the lock screen rather than one static image. From the Settings charm, choose Change PC settings > PC and devices > Lock screen. Switch the slideshow option to 'On' and you can specify a local folder or SkyDrive folder to source images from.

9. Set a universal wallpaper

Get the feeling that your desktop backdrop would look equally fetching on the Start screen? No problem -- Windows 8.1 lets you use the same picture for both. Choose the Personalise option from the Settings charm on the Start screen and you'll see your current desktop wallpaper appear as the final option.

10. Save to SkyDrive

Microsoft is very keen for you to make use of its SkyDrive app, and with 8.1 it's more integrated into Windows than ever before. From the Settings charm, select Change PC settings and then open up the SkyDrive page -- the options here enable you to use SkyDrive as your default save location, upload photos automatically and sync configuration settings across multiple PCs.

11. Edit your photos

Microsoft has been busy at work on many of the Start screen apps, including Photos, which now includes basic editing tools. Select an image from the Photos app to open it, then right-click and choose Edit to access a variety of tools, filters and adjustment options.

12. Restart apps

In Windows 8, dragging the top of a Start screen app down to the bottom of the display closed it. In 8.1, this makes the app disappear, but it remains running in task manager in case you need it again. You can use the same action to restart an app, but instead of letting go of the mouse button at the bottom of the screen, keep hold of it. The app card will flip over, at which point you can bring it back up on screen to restart the app.

13. Disable hot corners

The 'hot corners' let you access touchscreen swipe operations (like opening the charms bar) with a mouse, but you can turn them off in Windows 8.1. Right-click the desktop taskbar, choose Properties and then open the Navigation tab. Under the Corner navigation heading, you can disable the top left (open apps) and top right (Windows charms) corners.

14. View the full apps list by default

As well as launching the Start screen or the desktop when your PC boots up, you can choose to launch the All Apps screen instead (normally found by clicking the small down arrow in the lower left-hand corner of the Start screen). You'll find an option for this by right-clicking on the taskbar, choosing Properties and opening up the Navigation tab.

15. Make quick calculations

Click the down arrow in the lower left-hand corner of the Start screen and you'll find the new Calculator app included in Windows 8.1. You can use it full-screen or keep it in a docked window for making quick calculations -- here's a standard view, a scientific view and a conversion tool that covers volume, length, weight, temperature and more besides.

16. Create a system image

Windows 7 and Windows 8 both included a system image backup tool, but at first glance it seems to have disappeared in Windows 8.1. It hasn't actually vanished, but it has been well hidden. Launch the desktop Control Panel, then choose System and Security > File History window and the System Image Backup option is down in the lower left-hand corner.

17. Set alarms

Windows 8.1 includes a new Alarms app that will wake you up in the morning or remind you to take the dog out for a stroll. If it's not visible on the Start screen, click the downward arrow in the bottom left-hand corner. You can configure repeating alarms, set up a countdown or run a stopwatch. Note that alarms will only ring when your PC is awake.

18. Dock your apps

Windows 8 let you dock two apps alongside each other, but Windows 8.1 lets you arrange three, and adjust the dock sizes at the same time. Drag an app from the top down to the side of the screen to dock it. You'll notice many of the Start screen apps have mini-modes that they can revert to.

19. Switch off universal search

Enter a keyword or two into the Search charm and you'll be presented with a cornucopia of matching results from your PC, Windows settings and the Web. For a less expansive, less stylised experience, disable the online component via the Settings charm > Change PC settings > Search.

20. Get more help

Perhaps in recognition of all the Windows 8 users who were perplexed by the Start screen, Microsoft has built a special Help + Tips app into Windows 8.1 to make it easier to find your way around. If you can't find it on the Start screen, click the down arrow (bottom left) to see the full list of installed apps. Help + Tips should be available under the first Apps section. If you've installed Windows 8.1 for a friend or family member, you can fire up this app and then bid them a good evening.