Monthly Archives: March 2008
Are WiFi routers a health hazard?
With the proliferation of WiFi, it was only going to be a matter of time before health concerns regarding the electromagnetic fields created by WiFi networks would be discussed.
In the United Kingdom, in particular, parent organizations in schools and local health organizations have been questioning the effects WiFi waves may have on children.This is becoming more of an issue, and some parents have even gone as far as suing a school district over plans to install an always-on WiFi network.
At the moment, there isn’t a single study that suggests any harm whatsoever from WiFi networks. Parents, however, say that this is a new technology and it will need long-term studies spanning years to find out.
In the meantime, they want protection for their kids. Some small stories have been popping up in the press across Europe about teachers or workers claiming to have become sick because of WiFi.This follows years of concerns regarding the dangers of cellular electromagnetic fields (phones and towers), which have been studied extensively with mixed results.
At the moment, it is generally agreed that using a mobile phone for long periods can create headaches, possibly ear infections and generally cause a state of nausea for some users.
That’s why it is recommended to use ear pieces, two-way speakers and other solutions whereby you don’t put a phone against your ear for too long.
Accordingly, and due to the fact that WiFi is now becoming widespread – with every home, office and school soon having these WiFi waves flying around- it becomes important to launch scientific studies in the field.
The same people campaigning against mobile phone masts, are the ones suspecting the health impact of wireless computer networks. People defending WiFi say that a WiFi router is really small, use much less power, has a much shorter range, and gives off less radio frequency radiation than an average cell phone tower. Looking at this issue technically reveals that WiFi routers have a peak power output of 100 mW. Compared to most cellphones, which output around 2 W, its makes WiFi look tame.
So far, industry experts and engineers believe that children, and adults, will be perfectly fine in a WiFi covered area, even if they sat straight in front of the wireless router for extended periods.Every electrical appliance in our modern lives emits electromagnetic waves (radiation).
While schools are cracking down on WiFi routers, they’re allowing microwave ovens, cellphones, televisions, portable radios and other electrical devices that may also pose some undefined long-term risk.
Worrying isn’t it? Or maybe there’s nothing to worry about at all. Let’s see some studies that can tell us more. In the meantime, use every electrical gadget or wireless service with moderation and stay tuned!
Written by Written by Zeid Nasser
http://zeidnasser.blogspot.com/2007/04/are-wifi-routers-health-hazard.html
Google optimization tips
Owning a website is a cool thing in itself, but it’s even greater if you’re able to welcome a lot of visitors to it. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this, is by making sure your site is easily found through search engines like Google.
Info on search engines
The two biggest search engines are Google (used by Google / AOL) and Overture (used by MSN / Yahoo). Google fills it’s database mainly by robots automatically crawl and index the web. The Overture database is mainly filled through affiliate programs. That has a cost to you, so let’s look at Google.
Visit by a bot
You can ask a Google bot visit your site at www.google.com/addurl. The bot will look at your site and index it’s contents. Expect to have to wait for a couple of weeks for this. Plus list your site at www.dmoz.org. This is Google’s webdirectory and, next to the google bot, an important source of the google search API.
Find your keywords
Your website is not ranked one item. Keywords are used to determine the relevancy of your website for particular subjects. So, before buiding your site, make sure you have a relevant keyword. Check yor for keywords / search terms and use the good ones for your own site. You can get an indication on the frequency people search for a certain keyword (and alternatives to it) at inventory.overture.com. Use a dictionary or thesaurus for alternatives.
Insert your keywords
The most important elements to insert keywords into are the URL [domain name + path + filename] and title of your web page. Also, a low-level URL [www.mysite.com/page.htm] is considered more important than a higher level URL [www.mysite.com/subdir/anothersubdir/
page.htm]. Check out this website “Nu.nl” for a good example. Notice how every news item has it’s own title in the titlebar and how every item’s html file is named after its title. These tricks make you score!
It’s also important to use your keywords in the body of your site, frequency (a lot) and proximity (close to each other) are important. The higher in a page, the more important a keyword is considered to be. Text in headline (h1 or h2), bold or caps is considered more important than regular text.
Keywords checking
Once you think you have found the right keywords and you’ve written your text so that these keywords appear all over the page, it’s time to check out how your site is doing. At googlerankings.com you can check your position in Google for the keywords you have chosen. Top of the ranks? Great! Not even close to it? Don’t worry, here are some tips to improve your rankings.{/column1}{column2}Technical and formatting tips & tricks
First, make sure your site, especially your homepage, is frequently updated. Google seems to like frequently changing websites, this might be why weblogs tend to score very well at Google.
Second, make sure to have a lot of incoming and outgoing links (especially to and from big, relevant, high-quality websites). If something can be a link, make it a link! By doing so, Google will rank you pages higher as others who are not that embedded. This link relevancy system is called Google Pagerank. You can check out your pagerank at pagerank.net. Pagerank works on a scale from 1 to 10. If you have a rank of 1 or 2, you’re likely to be way down the search results. If you have a higher rank, your site will appear at the top of the search results, even if there are a lot of competitors for your specific keywords or business.
Third, make sure your site is clean and correctly formatted, preferably in web standards / xhtml. Avoid certain technologies the Google robot doesn’t understand. Don’t use a frameset for your website. Robots may skip frames or only index the upper one (refering will be a mess anyway). Avoid javascript or Flash menus, only a.href links are followed by a robot. Additionally, all javascript and comments are skipped by search robots. For the same reason, full-flash websites should be avoided if search accessibility is important (actually, if ANY accessibility is important). If you do feel the strong need to use Flash, all you can do is to make sure you have a keyword descriptive URL and page title. Also navigation at the top seems to rank better.
Fourth, alt tag your images. Text only browsers only read the name of your images so 0001.jpg does not tell a search bot very much. A short description of the picture is much better. Also if you combine graphics in your authoring program tag these as well.
And finally
Google will put a 30 days block upon sites that use sneaky keyword tricks (hidden text/div or text in the same color as a background), so don’t bother trying. Detecting and catching a bot with javascript or IP cloaking or using linkfarms to boost your Pagerank are considered even more a no go. Do this and you may be blacklisted for good.
Just remember that a bot will be optimized over and over to be able to judge webpages the way a human does. In the end, if you make sure your site is clean, easy to navigate, and your content is good and relevant, websurfers will find your site..
Of course this article only covers the most basic elements of search engine optimization. GoogleRankings.com is a great resource and also the diagnostics guide there to for more information
Reset the SMU on iMac G5
The SMU (System Management Unit) is a microcontroller chip on the logic board that controls all power functions for your computer. If your computer is experiencing any power issue, resetting the SMU may resolve it. The SMU controls several functions, including:
- Telling the computer when to turn on, turn off, sleep, wake, idle, and so on.
- Handling system resets from various commands.
- Controlling the fans.
Note that resetting the SMU does not reset the PRAM. Resetting the SMU will not resolve issues in which your computer is unresponsive—in these situations, restarting your computer will generally suffice. If your computer isn’t responding, perform these steps one at a time, in this order, until the issue has been resolved:
Resetting the SMU can resolve some computer issues such as not starting up, not displaying video, sleep issues, fan noise issues, and so on. If your computer still exhibits these types of issues even after you’ve restarted the computer, try resetting the SMU. To reset the SMU on one of these iMacs:
- Turn off the computer by choosing Shut Down from the Apple menu, or by holding the power button until the computer turns off.
- Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
- Wait 10 seconds.
- Plug in the power cord while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button on the back of the computer.
- Let go of the power button.
- Press the power button once more to start up your iMac.
The original iMac G5 model has a small button on the main logic board that will also reset the SMU, allowing you to reset the SMU easily if you have the back cover removed. The original iMac G5 will start up when pressing this button.