Saving Time and Money: Survey Software

If you have ever taken a class outside of college such as for your job or through a parks and recreation then you were probably handed a survey on the last day. Surveys are used anytime someone needs to get a measurement of success or a measurement of satisfaction. Most of the time you will be handed a sheet of paper with survey questions to answer. This may be effective but unfortunately costly because there is the cost of the paper and then there is the time that it takes for someone to actually go through the survey and interpret it. Web Survey software is a much better solution because there is not costly paper involved and results can be interpreted and presented in a timely manner. Survey software is now being used more commonly in schools and corporate settings and even with online retailers.

Committing Resources: Scheduling Software

Running a business is a lot of work and knowing how to best utilize what resources you have can be a challenge.  Depending on the size of your businesses you will have several or few departments that will be in charge of specific areas.  Most small businesses when starting out do not have a committed and trained employee who can train new employees.  They also may not have a dedicated human resources person who can assist with insurance, payroll questions, etc.  Nevertheless, for a large or small business, Online appointment scheduling can help by freeing up employees so that they may focus on other areas.  Scheduling software is a fantastic tool that not only allows scheduling to be set up by your clients but it also provides important reports for your business.

Today I’ll be providing a review of a tool that is helpful for those who like to overclock their video cards. I personally run a Dell that has 2 gig’s of RAM, a 40 Gig harddrive, 2.4Mhz processor, and a 1650x ATI Radeon video card. This rig isn’t the best in the world and is pretty decent for someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of money to spend on computer parts. However, lately I’ve been fiddling with trying to get higher FPS in my gaming and decided to try overclocking.

Now a word of warning, Overclocking can void your video card’s warrenty and can overheat and DAMAGE your video card. Do not do this if you don’t know what you’re doing. For those who don’t know what an overclock is, it’s pushing the processor and GPU to run at a higher Mhz then the factory default.

ATI cards usually come with a Overdrive feature that will overclock  your card slowly and find it’s limits and sets the overclock just a few notchs below that limit, however, this feature only comes with their newer cards. My card lacks this feature. After some searching around, I came apon a nifty little program that is FREE and simple to use to those with some experience with video card settings. The card allows you to manually set your overclock and fiddle with video card settings. It also allows for testing to make sure you aren’t overloading your card and allow you to keep tabs on the card’s temp. It can also go a little bit more advanced and actually allow you to change settings that the normal CCC program that goes with the Radeon cards cannot do.

Here’s the website for Tray tools that is hosting with Guru3d.  The download link is also there.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-tray-tools-/

 Our Rating For ATI Tray Tools: 5 Stars!

Chrome gives the option to search directly from the address bar. Other browsers such as Opera have this, but this browser gives suggestions of what to search for. When you open a new tab in Chrome it shows some of your most frequently used pages. This is similar to Opera’s speed dial except it is automatic.

The best part of Chrome for me is that it’s a lot faster. I can surf the web much faster than I can with Opera or Internet Explorer. It seems like both the actual speed and the access time are faster. I have satellite, and the access time has been a little slow. With Chrome, it is about three times faster than Opera with the access time. It’s about twice as fast as the actual loading as well.

I really miss the mouse gestures from Opera though. That’s one of the things that this browser lacks. I doubt there are many plugins for the browser either. It doesn’t support JavaScript that well, but it does fair.

Overall I am very pleased with the browser. It has room to improve, but I like it.

Our rating of Google Chromium: 4 Stars

First off, the most obvious thing is that the USB port retracts. You just slide the part in the middle. It takes a little getting used to though. It’s kind of awkward to slide for the first time. Actually, I don’t think I got it open on the first try. The place for your finger could have been made a little differently.

The Cruzer looks pretty nice. It’s exterior is black. The text is white and the part in the middle to retract the USB port is white. It has a detachable strap that goes around your neck. I just took it off and put it on my keychain.

Now to the important part of the review. The flash drive broke after about 6 months or so. It just felt flimsy. When I slid it in and out it didn’t click like my other one did (I also have a 512MB Cruzer Micro, still working). I’m sure being rough didn’t help much, but I don’t think it was the main problem. I have seen many other reviews where people are saying that theirs died on them too. I don’t think that it was a one-time thing.

Finally, the U3 is pretty bad in my opinion. I never got much out of it and I like technology to be much simpler.

Our Rating of the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2GB Flash Drive: 2 Stars

This is a picture of me holding the magazine in front of my monitor which is displaying this blog.  The picture was taken with an older Olympus camera, which I don’t think I will review because I haven’t seen it being sold recently.  You will, however, soon be seeing a review for a new PowerShot that I recently got that will definately receive a perfect five stars.  That’s for later though, so I will go on with PC World.

PC World reports on news on technology that you probably wouldn’t find elsewhere. I saw a story on TV recently that I had read in PC World earlier. It was quite a bit earlier actually. The magazine brings different websites to your attention that I have never heard of, and I talk to a lot of computer friends. It will often provide tips on speeding up a computer and helping security. They will review different technology and give statistics on how they compare to each other in many different areas and also overall.

PC World also focuses on new technology coming out, what features they have, and what beta testers have said about it. Additionally, they will tell you what they believe is overrated or underrated.  A lot of devices get a rating from them and a short summary of why it was rated as it was.  I like their writers as well.  They seem quite personal.

What I don’t particularly like about the magazine is that they will repeat similar things over and over. They always are putting a lot of tips on how to speed up a computer in there. I think we get this after about 20 issues guys. Also the magazine is called “PC World” but it doesn’t focus on computers nearly as much as I would like. It includes computers (and laptops of course), phones, TVs, monitors, cameras, and many other tech products. In fact, sometimes computers aren’t the main focus of the issue.

I haven’t used the website too much, but I know that it’s useful too. There are always discussions on the site, and they sometimes get printed in the magazine. A lot of the articles on their site are also in the magazine, but some of them aren’t. I can’t see myself becoming a regular of the site, but I will surely be checking in on it from time to time.

Overall, I really like PC World, but there are a few things that prevent me from giving PC World a perfect 5 stars.

PC World Website

Our Rating of PC World Magazine and Website: 4 Stars

First of all, look at that cool stand. I love it. If I run out of USB space in the front of my computer and I don’t need to access the internet, I can just remove (after ejecting) the adapter and plug another USB device, such as a flash drive, into it.

The adapter itself, as you can see, has a little cap on it so that you can remove the adapter, put the cap on, and take it with you somewhere. It would be very useful for a laptop without a wireless card for instance. The little LED on the front (between the cap and the adapter) of it is another nice plus, as it will turn on and off when it is sending or receiving information.

I have, however, had problems installing it on a computer with Windows XP SP1. The same thing hapened on my main computer that had its hard drive malfunction. I got a new drive and installed XP, so I had SP1 on it. I got it to work halfway, but it was hard. The box doesn’t say it’s compatible with Vista, but I got it about five months ago, so I’m not sure if it would work or not. Then again, it said it would work for computers with Windows 98SE - ME, but it didn’t work with 2 different setups. The router could have been partially at fault, but I’ll leave the router for another post.

Despite those problems, I really do like this adapter. Use the stand to point it in the direction of your router and you should be fine.

Our Rating of the Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter: 4 Stars

Before going to see the movie, you will probably know that the movie is about aliens coming to Earth and threatening human existence. After seeing the movie, you will probably know that the movie is about aliens coming to the Earth, threatening human existence, and who prevails. There’s not much plot at all other than “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a big flying… glowing sphere?”

The beginning of the movie is really confusing. I know it’s supposed to be a confusing time for the main character, but it shouldn’t be confusing to the viewer in my opinion. It takes about 5-10 minutes to learn actually what’s happening. Those opening scenes made me feel like I was being dragged from the theater on some wild goose chase I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on. It cleared up somewhat in the next little bit, but the whole plot just wasn’t deep enough for me. It was pretty much four main characters sharing the spotlight the whole movie.

Now I do have to say that I really liked the effects. The 18-wheeler’s “disappearance” was my favorite part of the entire film. The spherical ships was ok, but I would have liked to see something more realistic though. I guess anything goes when it comes to making alien spacecraft realistic though, as the idea itself is unrealistic. I thought the military’s bombardment of the flying insects was about as good as the 18-wheeler scene. Overall, I thought that they spent too much time on the effects and making it dramatic, and too little time on the plot. And come on - the guy can fix a phone line by touching the cord? Please…

Our Rating of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008): 2 Stars

You get a little car and race up to 4 people to finish the passage first. Your competition varys about as much as drivers driving real cars. You’ll get some people that go along at about 30-40 WPM. On the other hand, I have raced against people who score a 150 WPM. I average 75 WPM, which isn’t bad at all, and my fastest speed was 90 WPM.

The site tracks the speed for all your races, the average speed for your last 10 races, your all-time average speed, the number of races you have participated in, and the number of races you have won. I’ve participated in around 140 and have won around 30.

Overall, TypeRacer.com is a very fun way to pass time while improving your typing speed. Accuracy also improves quite a bit. On top of all that, I have learned how to spell a few more words. If you mess up on a word and don’t know how to spell it, it’s hard to go back to it.

So if you want to race against me, just add a comment to this post. I’ll email you and we can set up a time. Up to 5 people can race at a time, so it would be really cool to get multiple challengers!

Our Rating of TypeRacer.Com: 4.5 Stars

That picture isn’t exactly how mine looks, but it’s very close.  On the side displayed above mine says “Kingston”.  On the other side it is custom and says the name of my school.  Overall it looks really appealing.  The cap fits right onto the back of it and can shoot off if you’re not careful and pull on the little string-thing that holds it (well what are you supposed to call it?).  You could try to use that to your advantage and shoot it at people, but by trial and error I have found that this does not work very well and often sends you crawling under a desk in a search for the cap.

Believe it or not, I haven’t just been playing with it’s cap all the time.  I’ve actually stuck it into my computer several times.  It works really well and doesn’t have any of that U3 mess that my other two have (I will review one of those soon).   The capacity is fine for most of my needs and it held about 20 video files from a friend’s PowerShot with ease.  It is compatable with Vista and has been quite reliable so far.  I would definately recommend this USB flash drive.

Before I give you the rating, I must advise you to never, never take the keyring connector-thing apart.  It is very hard to get back together and can be very frustrating.  Another thing I learned from experience.

Our Rating of the Kingston 1GB USB Flash Drive: Perfect 5 Stars!