If you are like me, I spend a lot of time dialing into conference calls from my iPhone. Sometimes it would be nice to pre-program the conference bridge number along with the pin number and save that information as a contact. When you dial a conference number, you need to have a pause before you enter your pin number. By the way, the same rule applies if you are using a calling card or any other process where you need to add additional digits after you dial a number. To enter a pause, you would use a comma. The problem is that the keypad on the iPhone does not have a comma. So I decided to figure out a way in which to configure a number and paste it to my keypad and then save it to my contacts using the notepad on the iPhone.
I use Skype quite a bit and noticed one day that it has the ability to auto-answer incoming phone calls and enable your web camera. One may ask, why would you ever to do this? You can use this feature when you are away from home on vacation so you can dial in to your Skype account and then watch live video of your house. Since Skype is free and most people have a web cam, then this is a perfect solution if you wanted to set up a quick and dirty remote web cam security system.
So if you had multiple computers, you can set up multiple Skype Accounts such as gregnbrown_livingroom or gregnbrown_frontdoor, etc, you would dial in to whatever account you want to view. Of course, you will want to set up your profiles so that only you will be allowed to call into your account and disable anyone else who is not in your contact list.
One thing that I have found fascinating about the propellor is the way that it is shaped. Its shape represents a symbolic icon in flight and aviation. No matter what color, what size, what material the extractated twist of the blade from the blade tip to the root is undisputedly recognizable by anyone inside or outside the aviation community.
Investigating beyond overall look of the propellor is even more enthralling. The propellor is actually shaped like a wing. if you were to study the form characteristics of the blade to that of the surface area of a wing, you will quickly discover similarities. Specifically, from the leading edge on top of the prop and the would exhibit the same curvature and design features, more rounded, where as the bottom, is a more flat surface. This is because, like the wing of an airplane, the prop is also responsible for generating lift. Looking further, the root of the prop blade is noticeably more twisted, giving it iconic view as we discussed earlier. The reason is because in order for lift to occur, the pressure on one side of the blade needs to be lower than the other side. Air traveling over the top of the wing has a greater velocity than the air below the wing, thus lower pressure resulting in life. Since the wing of an airplane is typically uniform and all surface area’s are impacting the air at the same velocity, lift is equal. However, unlike a wing, the propellor takes on different characteristics. The propellor is not traveling through as much air evenly across the entire suirface. Namely, the tip of the prop is traveling through more particle of air than the root of the prop. The tip is covering a greater radius, than the root. Therefore, in order for the root of the prop to generate the same amount of lift as the tip of the propellor, it needs to have a much greater higher angle of attack, creating more lift.
With all the solutions out there around cloud computing, I would have to say these guys are the best. What Dropbox allows you to do is have a folder on your computer that contains a local (cached) copy of your data. Your real data is copied up to your Dropbox account. You can have your shared folder mounted on as many computers as you want and access the same data, keeping everything consistent. In addition, you can share content from your Dropbox account to other users so they can have access to the files you allow them to have access too. This sure makes it nice when you are working on a project and you want to be able to collaborate with each other online in real time with out emailing documents back and forth, flooding your inbox. It also has versioning control, so when two or more people are editing the same file, one on person saves it, it will save it with the file name-the user name of the user.
Once a file is modified, it is then synced locally to your computer’s Dropbox folder so you have access to it while you are offline. If you do edit it offline, it will then sync the file back to your Dropbox account once you are back online!
On Friday, January 15th 2010, I am pleased to announce the launch of my new product, Bits and Bytes Video! I will be providing instructional weekly podcast videos centered around enterprise class technology. What distinguishes my training material from other great websites and podcasts out there is that I am 100% focused on the higher level, more advanced computing material that you would normally spend thousands of dollars in vendor-only provided training courses. The technologies covered will include tier 1 and tier 2 storage arrays, storage area networks, logical volume management solutions, high availability environments, UNIX operating system administration (AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, etc), perl and shell scripting, enterprise backup and recovery solutions, Database design and administration, SQL programing just to name just a few.
No where else on the internet will you find such a complete, concise and well presented forum for this level of training.
The paid subscribers will have full access to all the video archives and be able to download them for offline viewing.
Click on a sample of a training video using the Auto-LUN feature on the HP Storage Works XP24000 disk array:
How long can a pilot who has little or no instrument training expect to live after he flies into bad weather and loses visual contact? Researchers at the University of Illinois did some tests and came up with some very interesting data. Twenty student “guinea pigs” flew into simulated instrument weather, and all went into graveyard spirals or rollercoasters [a tribute to the U of I flight training program??]. The outcome differed in only one respect - the time required till control was lost. The interval ranged from 480 seconds to 20 seconds. The average time was 178 seconds — two seconds short of three minutes.
Here’s the fatal scenario. . . . . . .
The sky is overcast and the visibility is poor. That reported five mile visibility looks more like two, and you can’t judge the height of the overcast. Your altimeter tells you that you are at 1500 feet but your map tells you that there’s lcoal terrain as high as 1200 feet. There might be a tower nearby because you’re not sure how far off course you are. But you’ve flown into worse weather than this, so press on.
You find yourself unconsciously easing back just a bit on the controls to clear those towers. With no warning, you’re in the soup. You peer so hard into the milky white mist that your eyes hurt. You fight the feeling in your stomach. You try to swallow, only to find your mouth dry. Now you realize you should have waited for better weather. The appointment was important, but not all that important. Somewhere a voice is saying, “You’ve had it — it’s all over!”
You now have 178 seconds to live.
Your aircraft feels on even keel but your compass turns slowly. You push a little rudder and add a little pressure on the controls to stop the turn but this feels unnatural and you return the controls to their original position. This feels better but now your compass is turning a little faster and your airspeed is increasing slightly. You scan your instruments for help but what you see looks somewhat unfamiliar. You’re sure that this is just a bad spot. You’ll break out in a few minutes. (But you don’t have a few minutes left. . .)
You now have 100 seconds to live.
You glance at your altimeter and you are shocked to see it unwinding. You’re already down to 1200 feet. Instinctively, you pull back on the controls but the altimeter still unwinds. The engine is into the red and the airspeed, nearly so.
You have 45 seconds to live.
Now you’re sweating and shaking. There must be something wrong with the controls; pulling back only moves the airspeed indicator further into the red. You can hear the wind tearing at the aircraft.
You are about to meet your Maker; you have 10 seconds to live.
Suddenly you see the ground. The trees rush up at you. You can see the horizon if you turn your head far enough but it’s at a weird angle — you’re almost inverted. You open your mouth to scream but. . . . . .
. . . .you just ran out of seconds.
Think about it before you press on into marginal weather.
