Title Technology
Today
by Robert
Sanborn September
2002
I have been
looking at a lot of interesting new computers lately and have found
some interesting things about them. First of all, they seem to be
getting both bigger and smaller but sometimes I begin to think that
the manufacturers are not keeping up with the changing technology all
that well. While I can see plenty of Pentium IV computers available
out there, there are some things that I would have thought to become
standard features. One being the new USB 2.0 standard. It is going to
be 480 megabits per second (mbps) transfer rate versus the current
standard 12 mbps. This allows you to connect fast scanners, digital
cameras, and external CD burners to your computers. Another would be
the Firewire connection for fast digital imaging and video capture.
Yet most new computers ignore these features and I for one if buying a
brand new computer that I will be keeping several years, would want
them for the flexibility of adding new technologies.
The other thing I
am seeing is there is a bunch of new very small computers. A lot of
people want to downsize and are finding that companies like Asus and
AOpen have some pretty interesting offerings. These are now called
bookshelf computers as they are just a bit bigger than the notebooks
and yet are still separate units still requiring a keyboard, mouse,
speakers, and monitor. These are really neat units but there are
things you need to watch out for. I like the AOpen case because it
uses standard micro-atx mainboards. What that also gives you is a
standard sized 5.25 bay for the CD ROM drive, 3.5 bay for the floppy
drive, and usually three internal PCI slots and a bay for a 3.5 inch
hard drive. All off the shelf components and that is why I like this
one. CasEdge is another manufacturer I saw recently has two version of
the book shelf system. One is like the above and the other is of a
similar size but requires a slim height CD rom drive and slim height
floppy drive. What that means is that if something goes wrong, you
have more expensive parts to replace. The other thing to watch on
these is that the mainboard doesn’t become integrated to the case
like in some Compaq computers of the past.
Another
Eye in the Sky
Probably the next
big technology wave that everyone will be adopting in the next few
years will be GPS based navigation. GPS or Global Positioning
Satellite is actually a number of satellites that are run by our
military arms of the US Federal Government but have really blossomed
into a technology for the rest of us as much as cell phones and the
internet have. But you know, it is pretty crowded up there in the
skies and will get even more so in the next few years as the European
Union is developing its own GPS technology that naturally, will be
different from ours. I first got wind of this in reading the Business
Weekly supplement published by China Daily. In it, China is rumored to
be set to join the EU’s multi-billion dollar Galileo satellite
navigation system. When active, it will allow you to pinpoint yourself
(or anything else that you are looking for and are tracking) to within
a meter in distance. That is pretty darn close. It is based on the
same type of technology that the US GPS systems are based on but will
be run by a consortium of businesses and governments in the European
Union. See their web site
at http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/en/gal_intro_en.html
Their system will
be based on 30 satellite and ground systems around the world. Lest you
be surprised by this, you should also know that the Russians have had
such a system, called, Glonass, operating for quite a while but have
unfortunately for them, not been able to develop the non-military side
of the systems as much as the Americans. So here comes a third system
that by the year 2008 should be operational. This system is expected
to be a complementary system to our own GPS and give the Europeans a
more stable and more confident technology. Another good link to find
out more about Galileo is at http://www.mobilecomms-technology.com/projects/galileo/index.html.
What does
that mean for the rest of us? Probably not too much as long as you
stay within the confines of North America. But if you are thinking of
traveling overseas and want to use the GPS unit that you have, you may
find that it just gets a little out of range. Naturally, there will be
several companies stepping into the market with Galileo based units
and there will soon be some that can read both systems.
I liked reading the EU web site that I note above as they talk
about the unreliability of our GPS system, and the fact that this will
be a very inexpensive system to build and run only coming in at $3.2
billion. You bet. But it is interesting reading about the benefits and
applications that they talk about including the usual mapping, traffic
control, lost hikers, and the like. They also talk about using it to
help map weather patterns, tracking pollutants, icebergs, earthquakes
and the like. As I said before, you will find a GPS system in nearly
everything that moves or wants to. And besides, the GPS unit you have
today will certainly be gone by the time everything gets going in the
year 2008.
But will it
be simply a redundant system that is not needed? In February of this
year, the US Government issued its own thoughts on the Galileo system
and you can read it at http://www.useu.be/Galileo/Feb1202GalileoBraibanti.html.
I wonder what happened to all those Iridium satellites ?
Finally, if you are
interested in learning more about the Russian satellite navigation
system, Glonass, you can see much more at: http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/constellations/glonass_consum.shtml
Short
Takes
It looks like the
new round of digital cameras are starting to make the rounds and these
look pretty good. Lots of megapixels, features, and from good quality
names like Minolta, Canon, Contax among others. If you want a good
review of some of the new ones, take a look at the latest copy of
Digital Camera (vol 5, no. 24), www.digicamera.com. This current issue
is a really good one with reviews of a lot of new high end cameras,
some great tips and FAQs that they have picked up, and a great add in
for Adobe Photoshop to balance the color between photographs. You
won’t find much on the web site but this particular copy of the
magazine has a lot of very good information, especially in the FAQ
area.
I don’t
know about you but shopping for computer equipment gets to be more of
a pain all the time. I have found a couple of web sites that I use
regularly to help me narrow down the field when I am searching for a
good printer, scanner, digital camera, and what not. The first that I
look at is PC Worlds review’s page at http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/.
For most categories of items, they have their own top ten list with
very well written reviews of the items you are looking for.
To keep them honest, I like to look over at Ziff Davis site of
their magazines at http://www.zdnet.com/reviews/. You have to look for
the section called “top rated”, otherwise you will just see what
they are currently reviewing. For price shopping, there are a lot of
web sites from Computer Shopper to Google to look for pricing but I
wanted to find what was the best recommendations. Of course, you have
to take all of these with a grain of salt. For instance, I wanted to
see what the best 19 inch monitor was available.
The Ziff site did not rate them at all. PC World rated the
Viewsonic GS790 the best and the Dell P992 at the bottom. As would
have it, the recent Consumer Reports magazine rated monitors in the
latest issue (Sept), and rated the Dell P992 the best and the one
Viewsonic they looked at was near the bottom. Go figure. What is
worse, when you look at the monitors in the stores, two of the most
common names we see in our area, KDS and Envision, were not even
listed on either chart.
Robert Sanborn is
an Independent Personal Computer Consultant, and a contributing editor
for the Indianapolis Computer Society. Reach him through the net at
indypcnews@indy.rr.com |
