Friday, January 29, 2010

Is Auto Insurance necessary?

Auto insurance is also called as vehicle insurance. It is insurance for cars, trucks, and other vehicles. It is primary use is to provide protection against losses incurred due to theft or fire damage or accident damage.

Auto insurance can cover some or all of the following items:
  • The insured party
  • The insured vehicle
  • Third parties (car and people)
  • Fire, theft, and damaged due to natural calamities.

Most of the people think why we need to pay insurance unnecessarily as we are appointing specialist driver. But we don't know what happens when. Lets say the accident happened to a vehicle which is not insured. The vehicle owner may not be able to afford to cover the damage of the car and he/she might be injured. This is a really difficult situation to be in.

Similarly, lets suppose the accident occurred to the vehicle which is insured, he can get Property coverage for damage to or theft of his car, Liability coverage pays for your legal responsibility to others for bodily injury or property damage and Medical coverage pays for the cost of treating injuries, rehabilitation.

Most of people will not insure because they think they are wasting money by paying premiums. But really when we think about premium cost, we will pay very small amount of premium and get huge benefit in the way of getting finance support in case of contingent loss. The key difference between this cover and uncovered insurance for vehicle is you can protect against damage to your own vehicle, even if the incident is happen by your fault.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

U.S. Troops Admit Abusing Prescription drugs

According to the news on 17th December 2009, in USA Today, it revealed that about one in four soldiers agree abusing prescription drugs, mainly pain relievers, during one-year period, according to a Pentagon health survey. The survey conducted on more than 28,500 U.S. troops in previous year, showed that about 20% of Marines officials had abused prescription drugs, which are mainly painkillers.

The survey revealed that pain killers were the most widely abused drug in the military, which was used illicitly (illegally) at a rate triple times of marijuana or amphetamines.


USA TODAY reported in the previous year that prescriptions for narcotic pain-relief for injured or wounded U.S. troops raised from 30,000 a month to 50,000 after Iraq war started.


The percentage of troops exhibiting signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) increased during the war years. In a 2005 survey, 7% of the service members suffered with symptoms suggesting PTSD which was increased to 11% in the 2008 study.


The survey results showed that the rate of soldiers who suffered with problems of PTSD raised from 9% in 2005 to 13% in 2008, and from 8% to 15% among Marine officials.


These survey results show that drug addiction had become a major problem not only at schools, colleges and workplace but also in Army. So, drug testing policies and drug abuse prevention measures should be employed in army to treat and educate soldiers about drug abuse. They should employ counselors who help in changing behavior towards drug addiction.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Different types of taxes

Taxes are money paid by citizens and residents to federal, state, and local governments. The money collected from these taxes help fund or support services provided by the government. It is the one of the main sources of government revenue. Taxes paid by an individual include income tax, sales tax, and property tax. Income Tax is paid on a federal level and in few cases to state or local governments as well. "Taxable income" is primarily money obtained through wages, self-employment, and from things like sale of property. The large majority of people pay their income taxes by having the money deducted from their paychecks. Income tax rates are generally lower for those who earn less money. Social security and Healthcare (Medicare) taxes are usually deducted from paycheck.

Social security benefits are granted to retired workers and their families, for disabled workers and their families and for certain family members of expired workers. Medicare (healthcare) taxes provide financial aid for medical services (this is applicable for people aged 65 and above). Sales taxes are more or less state or local taxes and usually added to the buying cost of certain things. These taxes will be based on the cost of items and help in funding for services provided by state and local government, such as roads, police, and firefighters. Property taxes are also state and local taxes that are charged on your home and land and contribute to funding of local public schools and other services in the area. Taxes improve our overall quality of life.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Mobile Devices - User Interface Issues

The mobile devices, as named are commonly used while the user is moving with the devices. As the size of the mobile device is small, it is improper to attach normal interfaces like keyboard, mouse etc. So special interfaces like touch pads, touch screens, pointing devices and navigation pads have been designed and widely used for mobile devices now a days. Though miniature keyboards are used for mobile devices, they are difficult to use with speed because of their size.

A major problem with user interfaces is while using the Internet on mobile devices. Many of the web pages are designed for viewing them on large screens that is on our PCs. Because of the limited display size of the mobile devices, if we want to go through a web page we have to struggle a little. When we consider mobile phones while accessing any application we need go through a series of menus to reach the desired application, this consumes lot of interaction and time.

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is designing framework to design pages in such a way that, the web page will be opened in specific manner based on the capabilities of the device and also user preferences. If these two changes are bought into the usage of mobile devices, the user interfaces problem can be rectified to some extent.

Friday, November 6, 2009

What is a mobile application?

Mobile applications are add-on software for hand-held devices, such as smart phones and personal digital assistants (PDA). In the initial days when applications came into markets they were only for entertainment purpose like a game, an audio video player or something that turns the screen of our phone into (for example) a functioning piano keyboard.

Recently though, useful applications have become popular. These include programs for tracking expenses, foreign language phrase books, location detectors and currency converters. Other applications provide reviews of nearby restaurants, lists of local events, or audio walking tours of tourist sites, which require an Internet connection. The GPS application available in smart mobile phones helps us to reach our destinations in new places.

Music and video player related applications such as real player, smart movie player etc. can play all formats of audio and video data. One more interesting and thrilling entertainment application is games that made mobile devices more popular in smaller age groups.

In the month of July 2009, just one year from the time of their launch, 1.5 billion mobile applications were downloaded from the Apple Inc.'s website for iPhone or iPod Touch. This huge, unexpected growth has prompted more and more manufacturers to join the mobile application race.

Friday, October 30, 2009

History of Mobile Computing

Around 1890s Marconi invented the wireless telegraph by encoding the alphanumeric characters in analog signals. He sent the telegraphic signals across the Atlantic Ocean and was successful. After Marconi's great invention, many changes came in the field of technology opening doors for wireless mobile devices.

In 1960's military had started using different types of wireless communication devices for many years. Wireless communications created great advances not only in the communication systems, but also in the aviation and space programs as well. Initially the military developed wireless communication through line of sight (If there were no obstacles between point A and B, you could send and receive electromagnetic waves). Later on, new techniques came that allowed to encompass larger areas such as using atmosphere as the reflection medium.

Later in the 1970's satellite systems emerged and were commercialized. With the arrival of satellite communication systems, the quality of service and reliability increased enormously. However, the satellites are difficult to build and maintain and are very expensive. We had to search for other options for reliable wireless communications. In 1980s, the cellular telephony technologies were commercially viable and the 1990s witnessed the advances in cellular technologies. Later many technologies such as WI-FI, Bluetooth, 2G and 3G emerged in order to make the mobile computing devices more accessible and more reliable.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Limitations of Mobile Devices

The most advance mobile computing devices also have some limitations.

The major limitations are low bandwidth, loss of connectivity with the networks, lack of security, small display, low durable battery and less memory. In addition to all these, mobile devices do not have a standard keyboard that causes problem for the end user to enter information relative to a PC.

Lack of security, this is somewhat a serious issue to be considered with the mobile devices because on network any two unidentified people can contact each other. Moreover, providing security to information passed to wireless networks is also a difficult task. One should be very careful when their device is connected to a wireless network because unauthenticated information may cause damage to the system.

The display size of the mobile devices is very small which causes problems in loading the web pages and graphics. One has to struggle a little to grasp the information on the screen of the mobile device.

Another major problem that prevents us from using the mobile computing devices is its low durable battery. Many of the mobile devices can continuously run only from 4 to 5 hours, so if we are out of battery once, we have to replace the battery or else charge the battery.

Less memory is also one of the limitations, this problem occurs because of the portable size of the device. As the device is so small it cannot accommodate larger capacity hard drives.

Though there are limitations in mobile devices, people have accepted the technology with open arms.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Internet on Mobile

Now a days, numerous personal and business transaction is being done online. Internet has become our daily life activity. We may need to access information from anywhere, anytime and any place, and that information may be an e-mail message, news, and a phone number of a client or the sales figures at the end of the day.

The Internet on mobile facilitates not information access, but also we can use it for entertainment, business activities like performing on-line banking and also for our personal needs like paying bills, on-line shopping etc.

Though we have smart phones with Internet support, they do not completely satisfy all our needs and are not always economically feasible. Internet on mobile devices is great when you have to small petty tasks that are important. For example, you can’t write a detailed email but you can tweet from your mobile phone easily.

A major problem with Internet on mobile devices is, it is a bit slower side than wired networks that should be solved by the much-talked 3G wireless technology.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Use Temporary E-mail Addresses

Disposable e-mail addressing (DEA) refers to an alternate method of sharing and managing e-mail addressing. The purpose of DEA is to set up a new, unique e-mail address for every contact or entity, making a point-to-point connection between the sender and the recipient. Subsequently, if anyone compromises the address or utilizes it in connection with any e-mail abuse, the address-owner can easily cancel (or "dispose" of) it without affecting any other contact. Following the cancellation or a substitution of a disposable e-mail address, the (ex-) owner need notify no more than one person/contact of the change.

Many websites require you to provide your email address without the guarantee that they would not send out spam. There is the risk of getting spam from such kind of websites. One way of mitigating the risks is to provide an email id -which forwards email to a real account, which is disposable and can be abandoned. There are a number of services that provide disposable address forwarding Addresses could be manually disabled, expire after a given time interval or bite the dust after a few messages are forwarded. Site owners that which fail to appropriately treat addresses they have gathered have found themselves in legal jeopardy because of the ability of the users who possess disposable email address trace back which website passed on their email without permission.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Why Mobile Computing?

Mobile computing is all about portable and small computers, which includes PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) like mobile phones, palmtops, laptops etc. In this growing technological world, people are much bound to work on computers and Internet. People are attracted towards mobile devices because of their major features such as-
  • They are wireless devices.
  • Mobile devices are portable that enables easy to carry and work with while you are on the move.
  • Has attractive user interface.
  • Provide many features like wireless LAN to access Internet from any part of the world.
  • Enables voice and typical data transmission
  • Enables one to one contact to have conversations
  • Has audio and video players, games etc.
The latest mobile computing devices are with 3G network supported Internet facility that provides high bandwidth.

Though the mobile computing devices have drawbacks such as low bandwidth, lack of security, loss of connectivity and battery backup issue, people still prefer mobile computing devices to desktops.

The revolution of wireless communications is bringing many fundamental changes to how we compute and communicate.