techimoto

Netgear Gigabit Switch

In part two of this article I am going to be talking about each piece of networking equipment and how it interacts with the network and its importance.

The basic goal for any network is to create a reliable, fast and easy to maintain infrastructure. Our network had the following criteria:

All Television, Telephone, and Internet is to be powered by Time Warner Cable (TW).

• Telephone via TW VOIP, Using the 66 block all house phone jacks work.
• Television via TW Digital Cable, our house has two High Definition, and two Standard Definition TV’s.
• Internet via TW High Speed Internet, by setting up a simple network we can share this with our 6 computers and have network enabled backups.

In the last article we talked about our goals for the network and outlined the network map. Read the rest »

How "healthy" is our health care in America today?

It’s difficult to understand why the word “socialized medicine” strikes such fear in Americans.  It’s almost a visceral response, negating what most of us know and have heard about other successful plans in other countries that most folks here would brand “socialist”.

Let’s take Canada for instance.  If we look at the numbers, we see that  spending in Canada is projected to reach $160 billion, or 10.6% of GDP, in 2007. This is slightly above the average for OECD countries, and substantially below the 15.2% of GDP taken by up healthcare in the United States.  This should go aways towards quieting some of the accountants amonst us, and should be looked at by congresspersons that are freaking out about “cost”.

Canada’s system is known as a single payer system, where basic services are provided by private doctors (since 2002 they have been allowed to incorporate), with the entire fee paid for by the government at the same rate. Most family doctors receive a fee per visit. These rates are negotiated between the provincial governments and the province’s medical associations, usually on an annual basis. A physician cannot charge a fee for a service that is higher than the negotiated rate — even to patients who are not covered by the publicly funded system — unless the physican opts out of billing the publicly funded system altogether. Pharmaceutical costs are set at a global median by government price controls. Other areas of health care, such as dentistry and optometry, are wholly private.

Considerable attention has been focused on two issues in Canada: wait times and health human resources.

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The Car Allowance Rebate System is a US federal program that helps US citizens to purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel efficient vehicle.

Thousands of Americans are rushing out and trading in their old cars to receive a $3500 or $4500 discount towards the purchase of select new cars. This may sound great at first but there are many hidden facts the majority of the population may not be aware of.

• The program is designed to get old cars up to 25 years old with under 18 MPG off the road and replace them with brand new cars that have a higher MPG rating.
• Depending on the age of the vehicle you will ether qualify for $3500 or $4500 off of the purchase price of the new car.
• The old car must have been owned, registered, and insured for the past year.
• The dealer is required to disable the old cars engine by draining the oil and replacing with a water and silica solution, permanently destroying the engine.
• The old car must the crushed and the engine and drivetrain cannot be sold for parts, this prevents the sale of the car in the United States and elsewhere as a vehicle.

Many of the cars being turned in as “Clunkers” to this program are still perfectly fine and are being turned in just so the owner can get a new car, but because the car is required to be destroyed hundreds maybe even thousands of cars are being destroyed. But is this really the best way to get people to buy new cars? Why go to the effort to destroy perfectly fine cars that may only be 4-5 years old.

Let’s say all the cars that went to the program that were newer then say 1998 were taken into a low income car program, helping get the “real clunkers” off the road.

It could work as follows:

• The total household income is less then a certain level.
• Each household would qualify for only one vehicle trade.
• The traded vehicle must need more then $500 in repairs to qualify.
• The car must be less then 35 years old, but mileage does not matter.
• The car must be owned for the last year but is not required to be registered or smogged.

Read the rest »

For most Silicon Valley jobless workers, remaining in tech is often the first choice, but with the economies current state and unemployment rates skyrocketing some are choosing to switch to clean-energy or health-care industries. Some are shifting even further afield, looking for jobs.

Silicon Valley's unemployment rate -- which was below California's average and largely tracked the national average last year -- has soared, surpassing the state average in May. By June, the area's unadjusted unemployment rate was 11.8%, worse than California's 11.6% and the national rate of 9.7%, according to the latest figures from California's Employment Development Department. The rate of job losses was particularly steep in sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing, where employment dropped more than 13% in June from a year earlier.

in teaching or financial consulting. People are leaving tech as “more tech companies are offshoring and some are shrinking, plus people are burned out and tired from having been there and done that,” says Ms. Brock.

Community colleges and job centers in the area are reporting a increase in enrollment of out-of-work techies, and many are looking to move into other industries.

Others are happier to leave tech. Minda Cutcher, 53, was laid off as a finance manager at telecommunications company Covad Communications Co. last year after a decade at the San Jose, Calif., firm. In May, Ms. Cutcher launched her own financial-consultancy business for the elderly.

Ms. Cutcher says she doesn’t regret leaving tech after working in the industry for 30 years. “I did a real re-examination of my priorities,” she says. “I’m done with high tech and fancy titles. Now I’m going from high tech to high touch.”

Security experts at the Black Hat conference said Thursday that hackers can break into an iPhone to intercept text messages, deliver spam and deliver malware.

Charlie Miller, Independent Security Evaluators researcher, and Collin Mulliner, a Ph.D. student at the University of Berlin, demonstrated during a Black Hat presentation that hackers can break into an iPhone via the SMS protocol to launch a denial-of-service (DOS) attack or take control of a victim’s phone.

“Its lots of fun to kick friends off the network, but it’s even more fun to own their phone,” Miller said, who demonstrated the exploits on both the iPhone and Android.

Google has already patched the vulnerability that Miller identified in Android and Apple has been working on a patch for the iPhone OS. An O2 spokesperson told BBC News that a patch would be available via iTunes on Saturday, though Apple has not confirmed that information. Miller told Ars that Apple has asked him to help test a patch, though that test hasn’t yet happened. Miller did confirm that the problem affects iPhone OS up to 3.0, and he suspects it also affects current 3.1 betas. Other phone operating systems would also need patched to the fix the problem.

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The next-gen T-Mobile USA G1 Android smartphone goes on sale Aug. 5, but unlike the previous G1 that had a swivel-out physical keyboard the next-gen version does not, but it still has the 3.2 inch touch screen.

When T-Mobile describes the myTouch 3G, it emphasizes its design focus on personalization, and how users can customize menus, wallpapers and icons and choose among more than 6,000 Android Market applications.

G1 delivers an extraordinary browsing experience. The G1’s browser comes with a clever multi-page window pane; it lets you surf multiple websites at the same time. Drag the page around with your finger to pan, or move from one link or textbox to another with the handy trackball positioned perfectly for your thumb. And don’t worry about waiting for pages to load. The G1 is equipped with 3.5G and Wi-Fi technology… seamlessly switching to always offer you the best connection.

Instant notification bar discretely alerts you of emails, text messages or IM sent your way. Whether you’re getting mail from Gmail™, another POP or IMAP account or receiving IMs from any of the most popular services, you’ll be alerted as soon as a new message comes in.

Read the rest »

Since Nikon’s introduction of DSLR video in the D90 last year, many photographers have been eager to see what Nikon unveiled today: the D300s.

It’s Nikon’s first professional D-Movie-equipped DSLR. The rugged new D300s offers 720p HD video, allows for autofocus while recording, and supports an external stereo microphone (built-in microphone included).

Nikon has also refined many of the camera’s still capture capabilities. The key improvements:

• Dual card slots (SD and CF)
• 7 frames-per-second Continuous shooting
• Quiet shutter release mode
• 5-frame bracketing of Active D-Lighting
• Dedicated Live View button

The Nikon D300s is now available for pre-order at Calumet Photo. Place your order now to be one of the first to own this revolutionary advance in the Nikon line.

Oxnard, CA – July 30, 2009 – Scosche Industries, an award-winning innovator of mobile electronics and iPod accessories, today announced availability of the new “Works With iPhone” and “Made for iPod” certified IDR350M (Increased Dynamic Range) noise isolating earphones for the iPhone 3GS, iPod shuffle (Gen 3), iPod touch (Gen 2), iPod nano (Gen 4) and iPod classic 120GB.

The IDR350Ms feature Scosche’s integrated tapLINE control technology that allows users to play/pause,  adjust volume, skip tracks, navigate playlists, record voice memos, activate the voice control feature, and answer/end calls without having to take their iPod or iPhone out of their pocket or bag.

This functionality is particularly useful for iPod shuffle Gen 3 users given that model’s lack of control buttons. The earphones compatibility with Apple’s new Voice Control Technology allows iPhone 3GS users to speak the name of a contact or say a phone number to place a call.  IDR350M users can say the name of a song to play a specific track, ask the iPhone what song is playing, or even ask the iPhone to play similar songs with the Scosche earphones.

Read the rest »

In todays day in age almost everything we use is a small computer, and while devices are getting smallerand smaller every day they are also getting more complex and require all sorts of connections.

In this article i will talk about setting up a home network and centralizing the entire home telecommunications into one central location out of the way of normal life.

This article is based on my house and a few years ago I had spent 2 weeks completely rewiring all the telecommunications of the house and relocating it from outside the house to the utility room in our garage, this required installing over 1000 ft of Cat5e ethernet cable used for both Ethernet and Telephones and 500 ft of RG6 television cable. Each room received three Cat5e cables and two RG6 cables, this provided for 2 Ethernet, 2 Telephone and two Cable Television ports.

The reason I choose the utility closet to use for the telecommunications room was done after careful research and planning, the garage is on the lower level of the house and stays cool year round allowing the equipment to stay cool and not worry about overheating. The second reason for this was the ease of running wires to the attic, In this setup I have a 2.5“ bundle of wires running into the attic where it then is split to each room. Another advantage of having the networking equipment located out of the normal day to day area is the network becomes seamless and you don’t see networking cables and tv cables running all over the house, It gives the house a much nicer feel. Read the rest »