Your's Web Tech Power Blog's: Sep 2, 2012

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Posted: 01 Sep 2012 01:11 PM PDT

If you are like me bedtime means check the email once more, maybe play a game or read on a tablet. But it typically involves an electronic device. Researchers at Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute produced a report stating that…yep, electronic light before bed negatively impacts our sleep. Probably not a total shocker, but the logic as to why is interesting.

Melatonin, the hormone that occurs naturally in all of us, regulates our waking and sleeping patterns. Light leads to a decrease in melatonin – meaning it is time to be awake. Conversely darkness elevates our melatonin levels which makes us sleepy. Back in the caveman days when the sun went down, melatonin levels went up and they slept through the night. With the invention of fire and electric light our patterns began to change. Basically, light is robbing us of natural darkness meaning less melatonin and less desire to fall sleep.

So what is a technology guru supposed to do? The study states that exposure to backlit devices 2 hours before bed would impact melatonin production. If you must use your device they recommend dimming them. Let's face it. The logic is there. So challenge yourself and those in your life. And for the children? Better stop them a couple hours before bed and give them a fighting chance at a good night's rest.

[ Backlights Before Bed – A No No? copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Star Wars Death Star Tea Infuser

Posted: 01 Sep 2012 05:30 AM PDT

What do you think Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader do during those afternoons (actually, are there noons when you're in space? It should be pretty gloomy all the time)? Do they sit down and have a game of chess, or hone their lightsaber skills against one another, get smashed with some extra-terrestrial booze, or simply sip a cup of tea while discussing just which planet the Death Star should blow up next?

Assuming they're all for afternoon tea with cupcakes and delicious pastry (I still wonder how inconvenient it must be for Vader to eat his meals. Perhaps technology then just pumps nutrients and vitamins into his body), then surely they would have this $19.99 Star Wars Death Star Tea Infuser as part of their kitchen equipment. The tea infuser itself has been molded to resemble the Death Star, where you fill it up with your favorite loose leaf tea, and then plonk it into hot water to let it steep.

This is an officially licensed Lucasfilm collectible, and you just got to love the cute little TIE Fighter that is attached to the Death Star.

[ Star Wars Death Star Tea Infuser copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Doxie Go Review

Posted: 01 Sep 2012 05:00 AM PDT

You know what they say about keeping track of one's finances – you have got to start by listing down every single cent that you have spent for that particular day, and do so for the entire month before you are able to better get an idea of just where all of your money has gone to (mostly down the drain or at the local pub, of course, for those of us who have poor financial acumen). Needless to say, if you were to do so consistently for a few months in a row, the results would be more accurate as to the breakdown of your finances. Some of us prefer to take the shortcut and write down whatever we have spent for the day at the end of the day, but as I personally found out, this was not the way to go since I tend to lose my receipts, not to mention a poor memory that made me forget just how much I spent and where. Enter the Doxie Go portable scanner that, as its name suggests, will be able to get the job done wherever you are.

You can saw that the Doxie Go is ideal for folks who live out of a suitcase. After all, it is small enough to be packed into any notebook bag without missing a beat, and even more ideal would be the cordless DNA that was built into the Doxie Go. One drawback would be the reliance on battery power, but I will address that particular issue later on. Do bear in mind that cordless does not equal to wireless capability (as that would further drain its battery), but what you can do is this – first you scan whatever receipts or documents you have for the day with the Doxie Go, and before you retire for the night, you can always use the included USB cable to transfer all your day's scans from the Doxie Go to your computer itself.

So far, I have tried to scan up to a century's worth of pages, but right before I hit that magical number (somewhere in the early nineties, I lost count due to the lack of caffeine in my system), the Doxie Go's battery gave up the ghost. As for the internal memory of the Doxie Go (512MB), it is touted to carry up to 550-plus document pages, but even that depends on the kind of content which you scan.

Of course, if you truly want to take the wireless data transfer route, you can use an Eye-Fi SD memory card to not only store data, but create a wireless connection to a compatible computer or notebook. If the internal memory is not enough, you can always scan directly to the SD memory card or USB flash drive.

Default scanning resolution stands at 300 dpi, although there is the option to scan your document at 600 dpi through a single tap of the power button. Adjusting the documents can be done manually if you find the (often correct) auto adjust work out of whack. The instant PDF button also makes plenty of sense, as it saves you the trouble of saving (excuse me for the lack of a better word) your document again into the PDF format. Do it once, do it right, I say.

For $199 a pop, I would recommend this if you do not have any kind of heavy duty scanning, and it is perfect if you want to keep track of receipts. Otherwise, if you have far more documents to scan and are seated behind the desk at all times, I would suggest getting a dedicated scanner instead.

Product Page

[ Doxie Go Review copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]