The Australian Perspective is online
by RANKIN on Feb.22, 2010, under Tech
I’ve started a new Australian Technology Blog called ‘The Australian Perspective’
It focuses on delivering technology news from Australia or from the world with an ‘Australian Perspective’.
There will be first opinions and reviews on tech gear, as well as some opinion articles.
Head over there now at ausperspective.com
Silicon wire forest makes wearable solar cells – 21 February 2010 – New Scientist
by RANKIN on Feb.22, 2010, under Tech
SOLAR cells built into clothing sound like a great way to charge gadgets while on the move, but for the idea to work the cells will have to be both flexible and cheap.
With that in mind, Harry Atwater and his team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have developed a bendy solar cell made from an array of microwires encased in a clear flexible polymer. It uses just 1 per cent of the expensive silicon needed by a regular solar cell with the same output, and is just 5 per cent of the size (Nature Materials, DOI: 10.1038/nmat2635).
via Silicon wire forest makes wearable solar cells – tech – 21 February 2010 – New Scientist.
Where is my desktop? – First Windows 7 Bug
by RANKIN on Nov.12, 2009, under General
The Clean Desktop in Windows 7
I woke up to a clean desktop this morning when I turned on my computer. There seams to be something in Windows 7 that turns the icons on your desktop off. It’s easy to fix (right click on the desktop > view > show desktop icons) but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
University student beats the Tax Office
by RANKIN on Nov.05, 2009, under General, UniLife
University undergraduates will be able to claim their study fees as a tax deduction after a former student successfully challenged the Australian Tax Office in Federal Court yesterday.
Former Australian Catholic University student Symone Anstis claimed $920 in self-education expenses in her tax return in 2006 but was rejected by the tax office, The Age reported.
The primary teaching student said the expenses were from travel costs, school supplies, administration fees and the depreciation of her computer.
via ninemsn – University student beats the Tax Office.
It’s about time. I’m a bookkeeper studying accounting at university and apparently what I’m studying wasn’t relevant enough to my current employment.
Some Microsoft Windows 7 Notes – from Mossberg
by RANKIN on Oct.09, 2009, under Tech
There are too many good things to talk about at once, but Walter Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal has a great wrap up of some of the new features what make using Windows much easier.
A Windows to Help You Forget – Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal.
Having steered you over there, here are some comments on my personal experience.
Speed: While I’m yet to fully migrate to 7, I can comment by saying that Windows 7 is overall faster. Great examples include the amount of time it takes to load programs, faster wake up from sleep and driver installation, especially for plug and play devices like USB drives, is much faster than Vista. I can’t yet comment on Boot times as not all the software that starts with Vista is installed on 7 yet.
Organisation: This is the much improved area that Windows has been lagging behind the competition for some time. I’ll use my example of attempting to complete an assignment. On previous versions of Windows, it would be almost impossible to organise the position of all the programs on the screen to ergonomically use multiple windows at the same time. and if you had more then one window of the same program open, it will eventually collapse each button in the task bar into programs, rather then windows. If you wanted to bring up a specific window, you would need to click on the program in the task bar, then select from a list which window you wanted.
This has now changed. Several new features and improvements on (continue reading…)
Windows 7 Arrives
by RANKIN on Oct.08, 2009, under Tech
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition
I received my Windows 7 Party Pack yesterday, and have spent the past 24 hours checking out Windows 7 on my computer. My preliminary rating so far is 5.5/7, but its only been 24 hours. More to come…
