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Dear Tech, So I have Vista and it is very nice
and all but it seems just a smoothing up of what we had.
Not really revolutionary. When are things going to really
get better and change?
Signed,
Not seeing the Vista
Dear Not,
Any predictions of what future technology will be like
tend to be hysterically wrong. Back in the ‘50s, predictions
included flying cars and thinking computers that would invariably
try to take over the world. Well we don't have any flying
cars and Colussus and Skynet never happened. However, Google
and Microsoft did happen. No one saw them coming!
But since you asked, here are my guesses. Regarding improvement
on the human interface I can share with you one model for
the desktop of the future and you can judge for yourself
here.
It seems complicated but perhaps when you are used to it
this will speed your file handling.
Regarding when things are really going to improve, Dr. Gershenfeld
has the shortest answer. “Its about ten years away”.
By then, it seems, we will have manufacturing for one at
home and computers will be designing themselves and the price
of all this will be about one tenth of what it is today.
To see an energetic description of this click here
.
Hysterically wrong or on the mark? We will just have to
wait and see. |
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Global
Warming
Save
Energy / Feel Good
The
causes and impact of global warming will not be known for
a few hundred years. In the meantime, (until we find out),
it seems reasonable to conserve energy. One way is to change
the color palette of your CRT and even LCD computer monitor.
It turns out that the different colors require different
amount of electricity to produce, especially on a plain
old CRT monitor. Here is the data for the amount of watts
required to fill a 15” CRT screen with a particular
color:
In
XP, to change to screen colors, right click on your desktop,
click “Properties”,
then click on the “Appearance” tab. Then click
on the “Advanced” button.
This screen will allow you to choose specific colors for
each screen element. If you really mess up your palette,
you can choose “Windows Standard” for color
scheme to restore your settings to factory default.
Of
course, shutting off your monitor when you are not using
it is even more energy efficient. When a monitor is started
it uses about 5 minutes worth of energy to warm up. So
only shut off your monitor if you will not be using it
for at least 5 minutes.
Is
your server room or data closet a little too warm? Another
factor to consider when replacing your old equipment (more
than 3-6 years old depending on business needs) is that
the new crop of servers with Core2Duo processors use about
half the electricity as P4 processors. Generating half
the heat also means that less air conditioning is required
in the summer for the server room also.
If
you have any questions about how you can make your business
more efficient and use IT to save money (and the earth),
please let us know. Email us at info@ositechnologies.com.
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OSI
Fun: In Common
Send
your answers to info@ositechnologies.com.
The first person to email us all the correct answers will
win a $25 Starbucks gift card.
1. Two famous athletes share a birthdate.
One was a Dallas Cowboys star running back
who rushed for 8,225 yards from 1986 to 1997.
The other was an Olympic runner and heptathlete,
earning medals in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996.
Who are they?
2. We celebrate George Washington's birthday
as February 22, 1732, but on what date
did his MOTHER think he was born?
3. All of the people listed below were born on July 4th.
Can you put them in order, oldest to youngest with the year of their birth?
Calvin Coolidge, Rube Goldberg, Ann Landers, Gina Lollobrigida, Mitch Miller, Geraldo Rivera, Eva Marie Saint, George Steinbrenner
4. Which TWO of these people were born on February 12, 1809?
a. Charles Darwin
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Henry David Thoreau
d. Abigail Ross |
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