Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Samsung DV300F is Wi-Fi Ready

Samsung DV300F Ease of Use Wi-Fi Ready Camera

 

The Samsung DV300F is shorter than the height of a business card, with official 95.2 x 56.5 x 18.3 proportions and a mere 120g weight. Sitting well in the palm, this is a compact that truly is compact. No one will feel discomfort slipping the DV300F into a trouser pocket, and in fact it’s almost too easy to forget it's there. We had the black matt model in for review, which has a totally smooth brushed metal faceplate and a more textured faux-leather rear. The DV300F has 16.1 effective megapixels from a 16.4MP 1/2.3-inch CCD.
Samsung has shoehorned in a 5x optical zoom with the DV300F, here supported by optical and digital stabilization and starting out a usefully wide angle 25mm equivalent (in 35mm terms) and running up to 125mm at the telephoto end. The lens boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.5, so specification is better than cheaper Samsung cameras like the ST96, although the maximum aperture of f/6.3 at full telephoto is actually slower. Instead of the more trendy touch-screen interface, the DV300F is navigated using a very familiar panel of physical controls ranged alongside the LCD screen on the right-hand quarter of the camera back.
Video resolution is rather mundane 1280x720 pixels at 30fps, rather than the more up-to-date 1080i/p, with the camera utilising H.264 compression. Strangely there's no dedicated record button either, another confusing oversight on a 2012 compact. The full extent of the optical zoom can thankfully be used when videoing, unlike on many cheaper-end models which usually suffer from quite noisy zoom mechanisms. By contrast the DV300F’s zoom action, whilst not completely silent, is impressively quiet.
Another accessory that is ‘missing’ is a separate mains adapter. Instead we get a mains plug with a USB input, so the standard USB cable (provided) can ingeniously be used for recharging as well as image uploading/downloading. Also omitted is a HDMI connection, again something of an oversight on behalf of Samsung.
The DV300F is the first dual-screen Samsung to offer built-in Wi-Fi, with an array of options available. Users can email their images, upload them directly to Facebook, Picasa, Photobucket and YouTube, or instantly copy them to a home PC via Auto Backup. Samsung’s AllShare Play and Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud services provide free storage space that's accessible by anyone with an account. MobileLink allows you to directly send images to a compatible smartphone or tablet, while Remote Viewfinder uutilises a smartphone as a live image previewer. Finally TV Link takes the place of a physical HDMI connection by playing back photos on any device that's connected to the same wireless access point as the camera.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Grow Your Online Presence


Grow Your Online Presence
By Summit Software Systems




A Simple Guide for Small Businesses

A good e-commerce plan can immediately improve your sales and marketing efforts. Whether you’re a neighborhood pizza shop or a home-based consultant, you can expand your reach to a national or even international base of potential customers. Indeed, creating and sustaining an online presence can help small businesses level the playing field. On the Internet, even the smallest online retailer can be as attractive and as functional as the largest big box store.

Although you may be a little intimidated by the thought of it, moving a business online doesn't have to be an overwhelming and daunting task. There are several solutions and services that make it a fairly seamless process. Below we’ll take you through some common questions and necessary tasks that you’ll need to consider if you want to grow your online presence.

Six Key Questions


1.       What will you offer online?

At first glance, your products may not appear conducive to online sales. Businesses like movie theaters, bakeries, bowling alleys and utility companies either require the customer to be on-site or offer a product that is largely intangible. But even for those types of businesses, customers have come to expect an online presence. If you can’t sell your actual product online, you can certainly sell tickets or offer discounts. Moreover, by showing online images, examples, demos and videos of your products and services, you can increase demand for your offerings. Whatever business you are in, you can offer something online. You just need to determine what that is.
  
  
2.       What are the required resources?

Internet businesses need to operate full time, so you must seriously and realistically consider how much help you will need. Below are some common options that many small businesses have employed to implement the online aspect of their business:

Hiring a full-time Web Manager. This person would be solely dedicated solely to Web management and operations.

Hiring consultants. Consultants or temporary employees can help set up your online business. This way you only have to bring them back on an as-needed basis.

Outsourcing. Many small businesses outsource development, design and hosting of their Web site and rely on an outside organization to keep it up to date and to manage growth.

Using “packaged” solutions. There are many "e-commerce in a box" solutions that will help you quickly and easily set up an e-commerce site. These products typically charge a monthly fee (around $25) and provide an online store with virtual shopping carts (locations where shoppers electronically place the items they want to buy). They also include online catalogs, customized product pages, tools that help merchants list their products and services on online auction and shopping sites, secure online payment options, discount coupons for customers, and technical support.


  
3.       What will your customer service policy look like?

Whether they’re at your actual store or online, customers expect to be able to contact a company with questions, special requests or problems. Make sure you place your contact information in a prominent and visible place on your site, so that customers with inquiries can easily contact you. Also, be sure to state how long it will take for you to reply to their message.

  
 4.  How will you process transactions?

To accept credit cards online, a small-business owner must first apply for a bank merchant account and then find a way to process transactions. At a brick-and-mortar store, the processing takes place when a card is swiped through the card reader. At an online store, the processing is done when a shopper types in the credit card information, which is then verified by a merchant account processor.

Merchant accounts may have drawbacks for some small-business owners, however. Most charge set-up, monthly and per-transaction fees. Additional fees may also be involved if a business owner has a pre-existing account for a physical store, and wants to convert that account to accept payments online. Moreover, some banks won't approve small online businesses for merchant accounts, considering them high-risk operations.

It may take 30 days or more for a merchant account to be approved and the integration process can be burdensome for business owners to do it themselves. Fortunately, the growth of online sales has given rise to an entire industry of merchant service bureaus that will grant a merchant account and everything else needed to accept online payments.

If you don’t have access to a merchant account or the fees are just too high, one solution is an online payment service, like PayPal. PayPal allows businesses to accept credit-card transactions and payments safely and conveniently. It also allows buyers to send payments directly from a bank account.


  
 5. How will you ensure transaction security?

If you want customers to make purchases from your online store, you must make them feel secure. The good news is that you don’t have to be information technology security experts to have a secure site.

There are services in this space that bring together all the security measures that an online small business needs to have in place. PayPal enables businesses to set up a Website that accepts credit cards without seeing or having to store the account numbers of its customers. This makes buyers feel even safer because they don't have to share their personal or financial information online. Gateway services like Authorizenet.com, CyberSource or Chase Paymentech Solutions will also handle credit card and electronic check payments securely.


  
 6. How will you ensure privacy?

Consumers' fears of identity theft and the aggravation over spam make privacy policies essential for online businesses. Customers expect merchants to boldly exhibit their privacy policies on their stores' sites, with links from the catalog pages and the shopping cart.

A privacy policy should describe how data, such as the customer's personal contact information and financial details, is collected and used. Consumers should be given the opportunity to opt out of having their information sold or distributed and of receiving e-mail newsletters or other company communications.

Starting an online store may seem like a daunting challenge, but the reality is it's never been easier. Today, many of the processes of moving a business online have become standardized and even automated. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today!

iDROIDs: The Robot Cars Are Already on the Roads


iDROIDs: The Robot Cars Are Already on the Roads
by Kenny Smith for IFS


MEMPHIS (IFS) Robots have been around for along time, and they have silently begun to take their places among the living.  First they started out in the car factories as painters, then wielders, Alan Beckett was the first cameraman to use them in making motion pictures, calling them auto-scoping cameras, then computer building units that function on the assembly lines.  They were repetitive masters with great precision that used the stationary pivoting robot arms that were doing mind-numbing tasks, without breaks, lunch, unions and any back talk.

Now these little units are found in the homes of everyday people cleaning the floor and vacuuming the carpets, where you can purchase them at Wal-Mart for less then $80 dollars.  But is does not stop there.  These robots have been reduced in size down to Nano robots or called nanobots that are placed in the human blood stream where they fight cancer cells and other diseases.  Doctor Leonard McCoy from “Star Trek” would just say, that this is a good start.

Google, the master robot developers have used their Motorola Company to placed the first auto robotic cars on the freeways of America, by getting the first robotic driving licenses from the State of Nevada where their vehicle drive themselves using onboard computers, cameras and Velodyne 64-beam laser range finder mounted on the roof.

With over 1.2 million people killed in traffic worldwide every year, Google thinks that technology can significantly reduce that number of deaths on the road.  Google’s combination of GPS data and the constant vision of it’s’ surroundings enables these vehicles to drive themselves avoiding obstacles and respecting the traffic laws.

As with guns in general, its going to be very hard to pry the steering wheel from the hands of the driving public and let a robot do the driving.  As with IBM’s Watson, or Honda’s Mono walking robot, or the quest for Star Trek’s Commander Data, the future is here already.  It has been a quiet revolution in the making.  With the combination of iPads, iPhones and Androids, I hereby dubbed thee “iDroid”, because it’s all going to be the same thing in the future.  One robotic nation that started with the television show “Jeopardy” and that will continue long after mankind’s rein on this Earth.

As a young student at Antelope Valley Community College in Lancaster, California back in late 1960’s, Doctor Charles Parker of my Economics class told me that Congress would pass laws that would tax robots and levee social security, FDIC and other humanly taxes upon them, and that this tax would be placed in our retirement system and it would give man more leisure.  I loved his vision of the future, but in reality that dream of robots paying into the tax base died somewhere in Congress in the early 1970’s and was never again brought to the front of the table for discussion.

40 Million Women are missing in India, Anybody Looking For Them?


40 Million Women are missing in India, Anybody Looking For Them?
By Kenny Smith for IFS


MEMPHIS (IFS) -  It is only 40 million women that is missing.  Only, that’s the size of several whole countries as many as two or three small countries together.  Generations upon generations of missing citizens that have disappeared from rank and file of families, the future work force, military, inventions for the future and just loved ones who wish to find them. 

Economically, it is a disaster for India.  With the potential lost of creativity and just the taxes per head alone from services and or lost productivity lies in the Billions of dollars.  These citizens must be found.  If they are looking for them to produce just male children; approximately fifty percent of them will have bore a male child; that’s 20 million males for the work force and the military.

 It’s starting to get sick with this number and very little help is forthcoming.  This all started when a television news report quoted the FBI statistics for 2010 that 2,300 children are reported missing everyday in the United States.  Adding it all up, would mean that 735,000 children are on milk cartons and the side of delivery trucks all across the country.

If I only get sick about 735,000 kids that go missing every year, or the average of 2,300 kids per day, what about the chances of being found alive in India?  Chances are not too good even for a child let along a woman that’s kidnapped and sold into the sex trade by her own family members and strangers.

What are the odds of being found in United States verses being found in India?  Statistically, the average child and or person of interest that goes missing are about seventy-two hours according to the FBI.  During that short period of time, the chances of being found alive is greatly reduced by fifty percent.  There is a show on cable called “The First 48 Hours” where searchers determined the whereabouts of missing persons and attempt to find them.

In India, once you are reported missing, your chances of being found within a reasonable amount of time varies from six months to twenty-five years to never, or as we put it, your chances are “slim and none.”  The Indian government is more interested in building a nuclear bomb to destroy their neighbor than finding these lost children.  They are more interested in letting husband and fathers kill their wives and daughters because of some kind of ancient ritual law then protect, love and cherish their women and children.  I wish someone would drop a bomb on them of common sense, loyalty, and just plane love of their fellow man and woman.  As they say, tradition dies hard, and so will they in the end. 

Why doesn’t the Indian government do more to find their missing children and women?  They are not that important to their society.  Women and children do not count.  This is the only English speaking country (thanks to British rule for over 130 years, thereabouts) that makes their precious citizens second class and untouchables.  They don’t want them found.

Yet we give millions of dollars to their country in military, school and social aid to no avail.  We give them lots of money to help them perpetuate the problem and they in turn give us what we ask for . . . very little help in helping their citizens and even less for helping us in the United Nations when it comes for votes on women’s rights.

We cried and get angry when the Nazis and Russians killed over 12 million people during WWII, yet we say very little or nothing for the slaughter of women and children in a lot of countries in Africa, yet there is not cry for the missing women and children of India.  No government official will stand up and delivery an ultimatum to help families find their love ones.

Could the sex trade for Indian women be so high as compared to the missing women of the Philippines or other countries?  I don’t thank so. 

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

D-Town Records relocates to Memphis


D-Town Records relocates to Memphis
By Vicky Holt, IFS Writers


SACRAMENTO, CA (IFS)   D-Town Records has relocated its SDC OmniMedia Group to Memphis, Tennessee with its SDC Radio One Networks predominately taking the lead rolls in production. 

The D-Town Records Imprint division will continue to repackage its catalog, and release its new products via digital distribution with D-Town Digital.

D-Town Records relationship with Memphis dates back to the middle 1960’s with Willie Mitchell’s production of the Prince of Detroit’s Lee Rogers with hit recordings entitled “Love For A Love”, “The Same Thing That Make You Laugh (Can Make You Cry)” and several other great hits.

KDTN Radio One’s Blogtalk radio series and it’s music affiliate station has been on limited production schedule since 2010 when operations shifted to the Yolo County farm suburbs where broadband was just limited and none existence.

D-Town has re-launched its’ sdcog.net website portal to report on its subsidiaries activities and products.

NBC Throws Ann Curry off the Bus



By Kenneth Howard Smith


MEMPHIS (IFS) As Savannah Guthrie officially takes the reins of the co-anchor ship of the Today Show this morning; I was one of those 303 friends of Ann Curry.  I had received rumors of Ann’s leaving as far back as six months ago from the many of the view ships of the show, twitter feeds, and other things.

I had flashbacks of Ann hurling herself off of bridges, bungee jumps, crazy morning stunts that gave me the creeps over the years, but yet the powers that be had to let dear old Ann go after one year on the job.

Let’s face it, I’m not bleeding for Ann, just hurting that I will not get a chance to see those hot sexy legs and shoes in the morning over my hot cup of Joe that helps to pert me up and get me through the day.  Am I a sexist pig?  Hell yea!  And proud of it.  On the other hand, I am a little jealous that I did not get a $10 Million going away settlement.  On my last days on the job back in 2001, it was a small $65,000 severance package and a good luck note.

So do not cry for Ann Curry, but my heart does go out for my morning show.  Since ABC’s Good Morning America has pulled ahead of the Today Show, I believe I will be switching alliance in the mornings and tuning in to watch and flipping channels to CBS This Morning.  But on these two show, they show no legs, just lots of arms.

Blog Archive