Like most electronic devices, cell phones are remarkably fragile. Your cellular phone needs to be protected from water, extreme temperatures, scratches, and unnecessary falls. Luckily, a wide selection of cellular accessories is available to help you keep your cell phone looking and acting like new.

The first line of defense against cell phone damage is a protective case. Protective cases are useful cellular accessories because they protect your phone from dust and damage while maintaining all of its functionality. If you frequently carry your phone in your purse or pockets, it can be easily damaged by keys or other sharp objects. For the somewhat clumsy cell phone user, protective cases are valuable cellular accessories that offer an extra layer of cushioning if your phone is accidentally dropped. Protective cases are normally made of leather, although cases made from neoprene offer better protection against water damage. Cases come in many different colors and styles to suit your personal tastes. Prices for these cellular accessories usually range from $10 to $25. Like most cellular accessories, protective cases are designed for specific models of cell phones.

Another option for protecting your cell phone is to carry a purse that contains a special pocket for your cellular phone. Keeping your phone separate from the other contents of your bag will help prevent unnecessary damage. With these cellular accessories, you won’t need to worry about scratches or makeup spills damaging your phone.

For men, cell phone holsters are useful cellular accessories. Holsters are fairly inexpensive and easily clip onto your belt. These cellular accessories allow access to your cell phone at all times while helping to keep it safe from damage.

Neck straps allow you to keep your phone around your neck for easy access, but these cellular accessories don’t offer much additional protection against unnecessary damage.

Timothy Gorman is a successful webmaster and publisher of Cellular-Phone-Solutions.com. He provides cellular phone plans, service and free cellular phones on his website that you can research in your pajamas.

Are you tired of laying wires through your house, creeping through small places just to get the right sound effect? Wireless speakers are the answer to your headaches. With wireless speakers you gain the freedom to move your music to where you want it to be without the hassles of cables. Planning to have a party outside? Don’t move your whole entertainment system outside while you can make use of outdoor wireless speakers which can move right along with the party.

Want to have hi-fi quality sound through your laptop computer? Why should you be tied to wires while using a portable computer? Make use of wireless speakers to give you the freedom to work or play on your computer where you want to, while having the high fidelity sound you deserve. Here are a few examples of how you can use wireless speakers to improve your way of living.

? Listen to your favorite music collection while taking a bath.

? Have a BBQ or party outside without having to move your whole stereo system.

? You can store all your favorite music on your computer and listen to it anywhere in your home.

? Listen to music while working in the garden.

? When your computer is doing certain time consuming tasks, have it play a sound when it is done with the task or when there is an error and have your wireless speaker notify you while you are lying next to the pool.

? Get the perfect surround sound effect by having the freedom to move the speakers to exactly the right spots without getting tangled in wires.

? Let your computer notify you of upcoming tasks or appointments by playing a sound through your outdoor wireless speakers, while you are washing your car.

? Let your wireless speaker notify you discretely of intruders by connecting it to your alarm system.

? Use you wireless speakers as a portable intercom system.

There are however a few things you need to watch out for when shopping for wireless speakers. Some are listed here:

Interference

Some wireless speakers may interfere with other wireless devices in your house like cordless phones. A good wireless speaker system will allow you to tune it to a different frequency to overcome these interferences.

Battery life

Battery life is not always too great on wireless speakers, as it consumes power to drive the speakers, internal amplifier and RF receiver. So, if you want to use your wireless speakers for extended periods of time, it may be wise to make use of the AC power adaptor. Now this may not always be practical - the whole idea of wireless speakers is to get rid of the wires. Rechargeable batteries might be the answer and some of the models even come with rechargeable batteries -something to consider when you need total freedom, even from power outlets.

Range

Most wireless speakers can work fine within a range of 150 to 300 feet from the transmitter. (Which would be located at the source of sound i.e. your hi-fi or computer) The RF frequency is high enough for it to work through walls and furniture. You do not need a line of sight, but bear in mind that obstacles weakens the signal, and the more obstacles between the transmitter and receiver, the shorter the range will become.

Weatherproof

Outdoor wireless speakers are claimed to be weatherproof, but if you do not need to use your speakers outside all the time, rather store them inside. This will definitely extend the life of your valuable outdoor wireless speakers. If you really need to leave it outside all the time, try to find a spot where it can be hidden from the most harsh weather conditions.

Stereo

Not all wireless speaker systems include two speakers to give you a stereo experience. Especially the outdoor wireless speakers are sold as single units. This can easily be overcome by purchasing two speakers, obviously doubling the price.

Legislation

Wireless speakers use RF signals which may interfere with other RF devices. Make sure that the frequency range is legal in your country. If it is sold by a reputable dealer in your country, this should not be a problem. Wireless speakers are till a fairly new technology and some still have issues to be sorted out. So you have to do your shopping wisely.

Arno Esterhuizen

http://www.wireless-speakers-guide.com
webmaster@wireless-speakers-guide.com

Since the DOS days, batch files have been one of the most convenient and immediate ways to accomplish certain tasks. Even today it’s possible to find some remarkably sophisticated utilities written as command-line batch files.

On the downside, batch files are easily hacked, edited, and reverse-engineered, making them problematic to rely on in certain situations.

I’ve written before about some ways around this, such as using elevated or deprecated privileges, but one of the more interesting tools I’ve seen for working with batch files is a program called Quick Batch File Compiler (QBFC).

QBFC takes any command-line batch program and compiles it into an encrypted executable or .EXE file. An .EXE file is much harder to casually reverse-engineer, so this could be a way to conceal a particular batch file’s operations from an end user. For instance, if you had a network environment where a batch script was run at logon, and you wanted key information in the script hidden, the script could be converted to an .EXE and protected from prying eyes a lot more easily than a conventional batch file. (.EXE files also run faster than batch files, of course.)

QBFC can create two types of applications: a standard console application, which accepts conventional command-line parameters, or a “ghost” application, which opens no windows and provides no feedback. The latter is best for security or for when you want to perform an install or modification silently. QBFC also lets you set various resources in the .EXE file, such as its description, the company name, version information and even the application icon.

QBFC’s shareware version is unrestricted, except that all .EXEs produced by the program flash a brief note at startup. The registered version does not have this limitation.

Program’s Home Page: www.battoexe.com

Serdar Yegulalp sells multimedia software from http://www.abyssmedia.com

Cell phones are great for people on-the-go, but talking on your cellular phone while driving can be downright dangerous. The safest choice is to avoid using your phone while driving, but that’s not always possible. Cellular accessories can help make it safer to use your cell phone in your vehicle.

The first choice for hand-free cell phone use is to purchase an earset. These cellular accessories have two main advantages. Compared to a speakerphone, the microphone is closer to your mouth when you’re using an earset. Earsets are also the least expensive cellular accessories for hands-free cell phone use. However, keeping the wires from becoming tangled while you’re driving is sometimes problematic.

Speakerphones that plug into your car’s cigarette lighter are the best choice for people who frequently use their cellular phone while driving. The primary advantage of using a speakerphone is that your hands are completely free. Another benefit is that these cellular accessories also serve as cell phone holders and battery chargers. However, people may have more trouble hearing you since the speakerphone’s microphone is typically farther way from your mouth than with an earset.

Newer models of cellular phones sometimes have a built-in speakerphone option. While this feature is convenient, it will drain your phone’s battery much quicker than using an earset or speakerphone. If you choose to use this option for hands-free cell phone use, remember to keep extra batteries nearby.

Whichever cellular accessories you choose for hands-free cell phone use, remember that your primary focus while driving should always be on the road in front of you. For safety reasons, it’s best to limit the number of unnecessary calls made while driving.

If you travel frequently, you should know that it’s illegal to use a cell phone while driving in many countries and in some parts of the United States. Always remember to obey local laws to prevent unnecessary accidents and injuries.

Timothy Gorman is a successful webmaster and publisher of Cellular-Phone-Solutions.com. He provides cellular phone plans, service and free cellular phones on his website that you can research in your pajamas.

Blu ray is a next generation optical media format developed by the Blu ray disc association, a group of leading consumer electronics and technology companies such as Apple, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, TDK to name, but a few.

The format was developed for high definition video, as well as storing large amounts of data. A single layer Blu ray disc can hold 25gb of data, which is the equivalent to over 2 hours of high definition television or more than 13 hours of standard definition television. There are also dual layer versions of Blu ray that can hold up to 50Gb of data.

While current optical media uses a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead. Despite the different type of lasers uses, Blu ray drives can be made backwards compatible.

The benefit of using a blue laser is that blue light has a shorter wavelength so that it can be focused on a smaller target area than a red light laser. This allows data to be packed in more densely allowing more space for data in the same sized physical space.

Blu ray is called Blu ray because it uses a blue light laser to write data onto the disc.

Blu ray is expected to replace VCRs and DVD players and recorders over the coming years because Blu ray offers so much more capacity. Although it will take time for Blu ray technology to be come wide spread because the cost of DVD drives and media is so much cheaper than Blu ray at this time.

Chuck Red runs several websites including http://blueraystore.co.uk and http://blueray-media.co.uk

When doing an interview there need to be at least three people involved. The person being interviewed, you, the interviewer and someone to work the camcorder. It could be argued - I would so argue - that an extra person to handle the sound is a great benefit but this is a policy of perfection.

Interviewing for video is a skill that can be acquired with practice. The key to successful interviewing is research, research and yet more research.

Before you interview a subject you need to know as much as possible about the person you are interviewing.

And you need to read everything that anyone has ever written about the subject.

This is what the Internet is for. Typically it contains everything written in recent times.

The more information you can get, the more research you do, the smoother the interview will go.

Having said that it is vital that you, the interviewer, both asks questions and knows when to shut up.

The problem is that often you will find yourself knowing more about a subject than the person you are interviewing, and the temptation then is to show off your knowledge.

This is fatal.

The viewer is not interested in your views. It is the person being interviewed ? the interviewee ? who should be the center of attention. And before you ask, yes, this is a major problem for me. I cannot keep my big mouth shut.

Be prepared for interviews that go smoothly and those that get a bit ragged. Three examples.

I had an hour interview with Bill Gates in Sydney for Australian television. My questions were well prepared. He would listen to the question, stay quiet for a moment and then give a cogent, grammatical answer. Amazing. As an interview it went like a dream. On the other hand, I got one very wrong. The interview with the late Tony Hancock, perhaps the greatest British comedian of his day, took place in the Sebel Town House in Sydney. It started as a shambles for I had not done enough homework. It evened out after a while and in the end worked reasonably well. As it happens it was the last interview given by Tony Hancock.

Then I did a series of interviews with members of my family. I stayed out of shot and just let them ramble on what they thought about their siblings. It was electrifying stuff. If you were a member of that family.

Write all of your questions down and create supplementary questions in case an answer, a good answer, is not forthcoming. Avoid questions that invite the single word answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

If you ask ‘Are you in favor of premarital sex?’ you will probably get a single word reply, which is not the idea at all.

Phrase your questions so that they lead the person being interviewed into expanding their views. ‘Your book suggests that you are against premarital intercourse. What are your views on this?’ is much more likely to elicit a full and frank comment than the first question.

To avoid a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer use the tried and true journalist technique of asking who, what, why, how and when questions. None of these can be answered with a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Before the interview starts, you, the interviewer, must meet the subject and establish some sort of rapport. There are interviewers, a few, who can go in cold and get a good result. But they are few and far between.

The preliminary chat is, as it were, part of your research. With it you will establish the ability of the person being interviewed to talk, to express themselves, to answer questions. It is possible that this preliminary talk will end in you modifying some of your questions.

In your preliminary chat avoid asking the specific questions you will be asking in the interview.

Instead, indicate general areas of interest. If you ask the specific questions the filmed interview will give an impression that it has been rehearsed.

Before you start your interview have your key questions laid out and ready. You need a certain amount of flexibility but most of the time you will find that your first and logical thoughts or question order is much better than one you compile while winging it.

There are two main way of handling an interview.

The first is where the question is not heard and the questioner not seen. Instead, you get answers that are obviously directed at someone who is out of shot.

A series of answers like this can be edited together from either one person or several, to provide the effect of a continuous interview.

In this sort of interview you ask the question and then you keep your big mouth shut. If some sort of reaction is needed nod or shake your head vigorously or smile encouragement. If you speak you will have to be edited out afterwards. Which is not always easy.

This technique can be seen being used to magnificent effect in the movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’ which contains a series of such interviews with married couples describing their lives together. Magic.

The other type of interview is where you are both on screen in the manner of a normal conversation. This sort of interview can easily be covered with one camera.

Shoot the interviewee’s answers first and then shoot the interviewer from where the interviewee has been sitting, asking exactly the same questions. At the end you do a series of ‘noddies’ that can be used for cutaways.

The key to making such an interview work is to get the person relaxed. Try to film them in a familiar surrounding so that they do not feel threatened. Keep the camera work and the lighting as unobtrusive as possible.

The first question should be a sound level check and should be totally innocuous.

Start the interview very gently in a chat mode and always move from soft to hard questions imperceptibly. Do not start like gangbusters or the interviewee will clam up or, in the worst case, walk off. It happens.

At the end of the interview I always ask ‘Is there some question you would like me to have asked that I have missed out on?’

This allows the subject to expand on a point or deal with an area they feel has been skipped. It is quite remarkable how often you will get an excellent and usable response after that last question.

Start off with a long shot of the person being interviewed facing the interviewer. The interviewer’s back appears, which gives a three-dimensional aspect to the shot and gets the scene in context for the viewer. Change the shot sizes in rhythm with the questions. New question, new framing.

Another form of interviewing on video is vox pop ? from vox populi, Latin for the voice of the people ? are quick interviews with people in the street to demonstrate public opinion on a subject.

What you want to end up with is a series of statements that can be cut rapidly together and, in the end, give a clear indication of the current attitude on a subject.

To make the interview more interesting change the shot size as a new question is asked. That is, switch off, zoom in from, say, mid shot to close-up, and then resume filming again.

Use different backgrounds and different eyelines.

Work out how many interviews you want and then shoot to that number with perhaps a 50 per cent safety margin. Do not go on shooting after that point. You could be getting useful footage for another scene rather than wasting your time. In vox pop moderation is the key.

Note carefully that subjects can move backwards and forwards when making a point and may even wave arms around in the air and you need to be prepared for this so they are always in shot. That the camera does not cut off parts of their bodies. Armless interviewees may be harmless interviewees but that is not the point of the excercise.

Gareth Powell has done many interviews for newspapers, magazines and television. He writes about making videos on his site, Digital images, http://www.pixelates.com

Well, the Internet access industry is starting to shake its way out. The much-anticipated consolidation of access providers is nearing its end. In broadband, this means that most users have little or no choice of providers. Though many of the changes have been hard on user choice, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, it’s better to have one stable and pricey provider than 100 unstable, cheap providers. The shakeout was painful for scores of users who often were left with no connection when they needed it most. And some providers left standing don’t exactly have good track records, either.

Still, there is reason for users to be optimistic about the future. The following is an outline of the way the Internet access business should go in the coming year. I provide it to give you a better understanding of where you should go now, assuming you want to stick with the same internet access provider for at least a year.

Don’t ditch dial-up

A lot of users were glad they hung on to their dial-up accounts in the midst of uncertainty with their broadband connections. When things go bad with broadband (as they often do), you at least can get e-mail, if not a quick scan of the headlines in text-heavy Web sites.

If you have a dial-up account, and you’re paying less than $20 for it, consider it a blessing to have a back-up system. At the very least, when you need to reach tech support for your broadband account and you can’t get through due to heavy call volume, you can e-mail them from your dial-up account. Things to look out for in dial-up:

Go with a provider that has been around long enough to quickly respond to such issues as software upgrades and peak calling volumes.

Read the fine print before signing. Some ISPs will disconnect you after a relatively short amount of time of idleness. Others let you stay online as long as you’re actively engaged. Still others never disconnect users. The last is preferable; the middle option usually offers the best value.

Check out Boardwatch magazine’s ISP Directory to see how much infrastructure you will be paying for. Make sure your chosen ISP has an acceptable ratio of modems to users. Three users for every modem is acceptable, considering that it is unlikely that all their customers will dial up at once. o Match prices with the ratio of modem pools to users.

Check out options such as personal Web site services and multiple addresses. These are nice to have and can add value to your experience as long as you use them–provided they’re bundled in.

DSL doldrums

Of all the access methods, DSL has received the most scorn since I’ve been at this job. My own experiences were horrendous, and I’m not alone. It works great for about 20 percent of the population who are geographically blessed. It works OK for another 30 percent or so of the population, who may have to endure some line noise in order to get DSL. And it doesn’t work at all for the other half. Couple its inherent technical limitations with DSL providers falling off the wires like shocked birds, and the situation has not been pretty.

Still, those providers that have made it through the shock test should be able to offer a good experience (with the exception of Qwest). Consider DSL carefully and you will avoid a lot of pain.

Some DSL issues you should consider:

Talk to a neighbor about their DSL experience. Do they have a lot of line noise on the phone even with the filters? Did they have any equipment or network problems with their provider? If so, did they get put on hold and shuffled around through tech support when they called in? Was their DSL provider able to support a variety of platforms, or was it basically Windows-only?

Consider an ISP for DSL service.

The Baby Bells, such as Qwest and Verizon, are not well equipped to deliver DSL service. Even though smaller ISPs may only resell DSL service from Baby Bell providers, they at least provide a live human being when things go wrong. Because the Baby Bells know the cost of supporting DSL users, they can offer DSL to ISPs much more cheaply than they can offer it directly to users. So you can often get a price break from ISPs, especially if you’re willing to accept a slightly slower connection.

Mary works in US for a media company, occasionally writing for the biggest cheap internet access news portal, and drinking too much coffee.

I am going to assume that you are running windows xp on your machine, and you are the only user on this machine. That is right, no one else uses your computer except you.

Let me ask you a question: How many user accounts should you have on your computer?

You probably guessing, one user account is the answer, since you are the only user on your computer. This is what most people will answer, one, just like you thought.

Here is the problem, you can run your your machine with only one user account. But, it is not a good practice.

The best practice is to have two accounts, even if you are the only user on your computer.

Here is why: when you install windows xp, a user account is created for you, called the admin account. The admin account has the highest privilege on the computer.

That is installing new programs, deleting, adding user accounts, and all the rest of the administrative services. In other words, you are the most effective user on this computer.

In order to prevent unwanted install or uninstall of programs unintentionally, you must create another user account beside the admin account. When you create another user account beside the admin account, so you prevent unwanted install or uninstall.

This is because the second account created will not have the authority of the admin on the computer.

In summary, you should have two account users on your computer, the admin, and another account you create. You always login and do work using the account created other than the admin account.

The only time you should login using the admin status, is when installing a program, or doing other tasks that can only be done by the admin.

For tips about your Windows XP computer, visit our new website: http://www.ResolveWindowsXpProblems.com

OK I confess I’ve bought at least 10 inkjet printers in the last 5 years and finally found one that I really like. I’m not going to mention the brand here but I will tell you what the must have features are for me.

After years of refilling HP-like inkjet cartridges where the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow tanks were all mixed together in one unit I decided to buy a printer that allowed you to change each color tank individually. Although a minor change this affected how much it cost to print a colored output page in a huge degree. I never liked the concept of having all of the colors in one cartridge to start with. Every time I went to replace an empty cartridge I wondered how much ink was left in the other two colored ink tanks. If you didn’t notice they were always a dark color making it impossible to tell how much was actually in the tank.

My new unit seems to use the Yellow cartridge (black aside) more than any other color which makes me curse the days where I envisioned myself throwing money in the toilet by only using half of the colored ink in a multi color ink jet cartridge. This backs up my initial thought process and confirmed all suspicions.

Since I’m a small business owner and penny pinching is always a must, I continuously test how much mileage that I get out of a cartridge. As you well know the little pop up window tells you when your cartridge is running low and it seems like it’s there to annoy you and serves no other purpose. Being the cheapo that I am I decided to ignore the warnings and bells and whistles that normally go off and run a cartridge to the end of its tank.

It was tense, a sense of childlike mischief came across my mental state. I was actually defying the printing gods by defying their warnings of certain doom, nefariously clicking the cancel on every warning message. Surely something spectacular would happen at the end of the life of this inkjet cartridge! I had gotten about a thousand messages warning me of the peril that was coming my way. I envisioned scenes from nuclear war footage and big things happening like the printer exploding or perhaps the printer cartridge police showing up at my house and arresting me for such gross disrespect for printer law. Whatever happened this would be BIG!

Well after running the cartridge for about a month I got a harmless message that the cartridge was now out. No big light show, no explosion no nothing, what a disappointment! Anyway, I installed a new cartridge, realigned the thing using the printing utility and was up and running in about five minutes.

The point of the whole ordeal was to figure out how many more print jobs that I could do without changing the ink. Thus, saving me some extra cash. Well a month of printing is nothing to scoff at and it ended up saving me around $5.00 by using the cartridge down to the last drop.

Will it work on your printer? I don’t know.. But you should check out the manual for your printer to ensure that you won’t damage it by running the cartridge dry.

But friend I choose to live life on the edge. =)

Alexis Allen is a self-described consumer advocate in the Home Electronics Industry. You can check out her latest articles on the cost of printing at http://www.cheap-toner-cartridges.com

As an important part of your daily life, your cell phone should reflect your personality. At one time, the only way to personalize your phone was to get one in your favorite color. Today, great cellular accessories such as ringtones and wallpapers make it easy to create a phone that’s as unique as you are.

A ringtone is the sound your phone makes when there’s an incoming call. Custom ringtones are fun cellular accessories to personalize your phone and help identify your phone in a room full of cell phone users. Ringtones are available for purchase or as free downloads on a variety of websites. To download these cellular accessories, your phone must have internet access. Many cell phone providers have websites containing custom ringtones, but you can also type "cell phone ringtones" into any search engine to find sources for these cellular accessories. If your cellular phone supports SP-MIDI files, there are online tutorials that can teach you how to create your own ringtones. However, not all cell phones are capable of playing custom ringtones and some models will only play either polyphonic or monophonic ringtones. If you’re planning to use ringtones, make sure your phone is compatible with these cellular accessories.

Custom wallpapers are also great cellular accessories for people looking to personalize their phones. Cell phone wallpaper is just a smaller version of the desktop wallpapers for your home computer. Wallpapers can feature your favorite movies, actors, or music groups. Your wallpaper can be of a place you’d like to visit or of the car you’d like to own. You can even use your favorite photo to create your own wallpaper. To download these cellular accessories, your phone must have internet access. Like ringtones, wallpapers are available for purchase or as free downloads on many websites. You just need to type "cell phone wallpaper" into any search engine to find sources for these cellular accessories.

Timothy Gorman is a successful webmaster and publisher of Cellular-Phone-Solutions.com. He provides cellular phone plans, service and free cellular phones on his website that you can research in your pajamas.