Understanding The Basics Of GPS

The GPS (Global Positioning System) has been fully functional for nearly two decades. GPS consists of 27 satellites positioned in a medium earth orbit. A satellite is considered to be in medium earth orbit when it is 35,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface, roughly 22,000 miles. The first experimental satellite was launched in 1972. It was not until 1995, 23 years after the launch of the first experimental satellite, that GPS bore fruit as a fully function satellite tracking system. Even then the system was restricted to military and airline industry use.

Once GPS was fully functional both the military and civilian implications were quickly recognized. In 1996, then President, Bill Clinton, opened the system to civilian uses as well as military uses. Due to limitations early civilian GPS was not very reliable and so its wide spread use had been severely limited. In 1998 and again in 2004 extra civilian signals were added to GPS. The net affect of the added civilian signals was that the quality and accuracy of the data were raised to a level that civilian GPS has now become a marketable product and service. Since 2004 GPS as a market technology has realized a boom in demand with no end in potential growth in site.

How GPS Technology Works

The 27 satellites that are collectively known as the Global Positioning System have flight patterns that make four satellites available to a GPS receiver at any time any where in the world. A GPS receiver must be able to contact and communicate with a minimum of 4 satellites to be able to calculate minimally qualified location data. The larger the number of satellites a GPS receiver can contact the better it will be able to calculate a location.

In order to triangulate a geographic position a GPS receiver calculates the time that it takes for the signal of the GPS satellite to reach the GPS receiver. From this data the GPS unit is able to calculate the distance to each satellite. The time distance information is then used by the mapping software on the GPS receiver unit to determine an exact location on earth.

Satellite signal degradation from both natural and man made obstructions can affect how accurate a GPS unit is. This is why GPS units will try to contact as many GPS satellites as possible. The more satellites the GPS unit is able to contact the more accurate the location.

Uses Of GPS

The purpose of GPS technology has not changed much over the last 30 years. Its primary purpose is still to as precisely as possible pinpoint a location anywhere on Earth. How GPS technology is used has not truly changed either. It is used for two primary functions tracking and navigation.

Growth in GPS technology has not come because of changes in use but because of an increase in signal quality, decrease in component costs of a GPS unit, increase in the quality and sophistication of mapping software, the bundling of GPS units with other services, and more sophisticated marketing to a broader segment of the population.

Today GPS units large and small can be found in airplanes, cars, attached to motorcycles, in cell phones, PDAs and hidden in freight to protect from theft.The shrinking of GPS unit component sizes has enabled the use of GPS to be limited only by your imagination.

Batteries - Charging ahead

In these days of walk-and-talk and walk-and-work, battery chargers are as much a necessity to business as a microwave oven is to the kitchen. Cell phones, laptops, notebooks, and camcorders, just to mention a few.

But how do they work? Here are some types of battery chargers explained:

• Solar battery chargers: These little gems use the sun's energy to recharge batteries. From car, boat and motorbikes to cell phones, DVD players and computers, there is a solar battery charger to suit.

• Automotive battery chargers: Most automotive battery chargers simply attach to the vehicle's battery terminals and plug in to mains power. However, there are now new products on the market that work to prevent the battery from going flat in the first place. To comprehend how the process works it is important to understand what causes a battery to deteriorate.

Car batteries rely on a chemical process to provide power. The car battery contains lead plates in a solution of sulphuric acid, which act together to make and store electricity. Over time a residue of lead sulphate builds up on the plates, reducing the flow of electricity. "De-sulphating" technology reverses this process by using sound waves to dissolve the residue build-up.

Of course this won't help if you've left your lights on at the train station …

• Industrial Battery Chargers: These are the big guys. With names such as ferroresonant, Opportunity Charging and Silicon Controlled Rectifier charger, these are heavy-duty long haul pieces of technology. Whether cold storage units, factory or fleet applications, there is an industrial battery charger to suit. Basically though, it is important that the industrial battery charger contains a voltage regulator of some description. This will ensure that the battery is not damaged while it is being recharged

• Cell Phone Battery Chargers: It is very important to choose a cell phone battery charger that is designed for the model and type of battery being charged. Likewise, it is prudent to make sure that the battery is, itself, the correct one for the phone.

Choosing the correct battery charger will ensure that the connection points will be compatible and the correct amount of electricity is delivered. If too little electricity is delivered, the battery will not fully charge; if too much, it may overheat. Many cell phone battery chargers today do have a built in system to prevent overcharging, however, it is still important to ensure the charger and battery are compatible.

And to make sure that business, or life in general, isn't inconvenienced too much due to battery recharging, many cell phone battery chargers now allow the user to make phone calls during the recharging process.

So, the next time you're out and about walking the talk, spare a thought for the hard-working companion who makes sure your equipment is up to the job. And, the most important thing of all … never mistake that cup of coffee on your desk for your cell phone battery charger carriage.

Odyssey Batteries and the Odyssey Optimizer

Odyssey batteries are high performance batteries for anyone interested in any type of high speed motorized sporting. One brand has surpassed the rest in offering high performance batteries, and that is Odyssey.

Odyssey, which claims to be the Extreme Battery, offers batteries for motorcycles, ATVs, utility vehicles, and personal watercraft such as jet skis. Odyssey batteries are military grade and can withstand the abuse that comes from high speed motorized sports. While most batteries will succumb to vibration and mechanical abuse, Odyssey batteries do not.

Odyssey batteries are the original rechargeable battery containing lead acid. However, these batteries are sealed so they avoid spilling which is a hazard in traditional "spillable" lead-acid batteries. They are also referred to as sealed-MF, or maintenance free, because they are shipped fully charged and do not require activation.

Odyssey has developed its own tester and charger to ensure the proper maintenance of their batteries. Known as the Odyssey Optimizer, this charger and tester is one of the best of the market for sealed lead-acid batteries. The type of charger required depends greatly on how the motorized sporting equipment is used. If the battery must be discharged rapidly and then recharged rapidly, this requires a different charger than if the battery must stay at a high state of charge with multiple starts and stops.

Odyssey batteries are the way to for anyone involved in motorized sporting. These types of batteries hold all the advantages over their rechargeable counterparts. Though the price can vary greatly, it is well worth the investment to have a reliable and powerful battery.

Affordable Consumer Electronics and Goods for the Small Business

As a small business owner, you probably know what a hassle it can be to shop for electronics and other business goods. You need products that are dependable, affordable, and easy to use. Computers, office equipment, mo bile phones, and many other business necessities are available both online and off-line, so you have many options to consider.

Tips for In-Store Buying

When shopping for electronics or computers at a local store, compare brand names, features and pricing carefully. Sometimes a low price means sacrificing the quality or features you really need. For instance, if you're planning to buy a computer desk, consider the design of the desk and all its features. Does it have drawers or shelves to make organization easy? Does it have a pullout keyboard or a desktop keyboard? Also, consider the size of the desk and the quality of its materials (steel, solid wood or particle board).

When buying a computer, consider brand name, size of the hard drive and memory, as well as any pre-installed software it may contain. Avoid buying computers that have "advertising" menu bars pre-installed on the Windows screen. These tend to hang up often and are not worth the hassle although they are usually lower in price. Look for reputable brand names such as Dell, Pentium, Acer, and Compaq. Dependable laptops are available from these companies: Dell, Averatec, Compaq, HP Pavillion, Acer, Gateway, and IBM.

Avoid rebate offers. Rebates are often more trouble than they're worth, and your name might get added to hundreds of mailing lists! Instead, shop around for a great value up front to get the PC or laptop that will meet your needs.

Refurbished Products

With refurbished electronics or computers, find a reputable company that has a good standing with the Better Business Bureau. Some companies will advertise refurbished items, but will not follow through with a guarantee. Before buying a refurbished item, check for a guarantee and do a little research on the company to find out if other customers were satisfied with the products and service. If buying refurbished computers online, use the search engines to find out as much information as you can about the company.

Buying Electronics and Computers Online

Shop around online for great bargains on brand name electronics and computers. If you're pressed for time, there are discount home electronics online superstores that carry almost everything you'll need for your small business. Some of the products you might find include cables, office equipment, TV and video accessories, scanners, GPS, power protection products, mobile phones, digital recorders, formatted diskettes, CDs, and more.

Online electronics stores for small business can offer you better prices because they have few overhead costs when operating on the Web. You can usually expect to save up to 20% on items.

You'll find shopping online to be a great time-saver because you can shop from your home or office without visiting busy stores.

Use these tips to find electronics, computers and other products for your small business at great prices without sacrificing quality.

Things to Consider when Looking for a Camcorder

When considering a new camcorder, one of the first choices to make is the recording medium that you will use to record your movies. Selecting a recording media first will significantly reduce the number of camcorders you need to consider, so decisions made afterwards will be quite a bit easier. Let's review the types of storage media available as well the types of user/usage each media is best suited for.

== Tape Camcorders ==

Even though it's been around for a long time, tape provides the highest grade recordings for camcorders. When recording to tape, the image is subjected to the least amount of compression so your recordings maintain the best possible image quality. In addition to providing sharpest images, tape-based camcorders also tend to be cheaper than camcorders that make use of other storage media.

One downside to tape-based camcorders is that the tapes are limited as to how much can be recorded to between 60 - 90 minutes. But the recording tapes are fairly cheap to buy, so carrying backup tapes is usually not an issue. An additional issue with camcorders that record to tape is that to get your recordings onto a format you can send to Grandma (a DVD for example) requires that you download your movie to a computer first. The downloading transfer takes place in real time. So if you need to download a 90-minute recording to your computer, it will really take 90 minutes. With tape-based camcorders, you cannot perform any sort of editing (other than backing over the tape and recording over it again); all of the editing needs to take place on your computer.

Tape-based camcorders are ideal for two types of users: people who want high quality recordings, and people on a budget.

== Hard-Drive Camcorders ==

Hard-disk drive (HDD) camcorders tend to give the longest possible recording lengths. With typical amounts of compression, you can typically get as much as 10 hours of recording time on an HDD camcorder. With an HDD camcorder, you never need to buy additional tapes. Depending on the specific model, you can edit your recordings right on your camcorder. And when it is time to transfer your movies to your computer, the transfer rate is substantially higher than when transferring recordings from a tape-based camcorder.

The main downside with HDD camcorders is that the movies are most often very compressed and this can lead to poorer image quality. HDDs themselves are also comparatively power hungry and can be more easily ruined from environmental extremes or drops (as can your camcorder itself). But if you ruin your tape-based camcorder, while the camera may be dead, you still have the tape. In the case of an HDD-based camcorder, if it gets destroyed, you are unlikely to get your existing recordings off the camcorder.

HDD camcorders are extremely versatile and they are principally meant for the home user.

== DVD camcorders ==

Camcorders that store directly to a DVD as their recording medium are a good choice for folks who desire a recording format that is widely playable and for those without a computer. There's nothing simpler than recording a movie on your camcorder and putting the result right into the DVD player.

The primary negative for DVD camcorders is the length of recording and the image quality. The amount of recording time available will depend on the compression employed, but at the best recording quality settings, you can expect to get only get 20 - 30 minutes per DVD. If you reduce the quality of the compression you can get longer recording times, but then your recording quality is reduced.

DVD camcorders are an excellent pick for people without computers since there is no need to upload the video from of the camera; it comes off directly on the DVD. If you have a computer, and it's a model that you do not think is appropriate to the increased demands of video transfer and editing, a DVD camcorder may also be a good pick for you.

== Flash Camcorders ==

As advances continue to be made in the flash memory field, flash-based camcorders are becoming more prevalent. Solid-state flash takes up very little space and is relatively low-power, so camcorders with flash memory as a storage media tend to be lighter and smaller than other camcorder models. They also tend to be more rugged and are able to take more abuse such as drops. Like many other models, flash-based camcorders need to have their recordings transferred to a computer before the video can be put onto a DVD, but the transfer is typically very fast for most models.

As with other non-tape based camcorders, there may be issues around image quality and compression. Also, depending on the amount of the flash memory available, there may issues around the amount of the recording time available.

If you are searching for the lightest and smallest camcorder obtainable, a flash-based camcorder is probably your best bet.

Digital Video Recorder - Record Your Favorite Shows With Ease

It's been a long time since our primary television-recording dilemma was a simple matter of choosing between VHS and Beta. The intervening years between the much-lauded advent of the videocassette tape recorder and these days of astounding recording choice have been busy ones for those in the consumer electronics industry, with the result that the lay person simply wanting to tape their favorite show while they go out for the evening can feel a little unsure about which way to turn. With videocassettes quickly becoming a thing of the past, the television recording public are feeling the urgency of familiarising themselves with the new methods of saving their favorite shows for later. So let's take a quick look at what makes digital video recorders so great.

Digital video recorders work, in very basic terms, by copying the shows you want to see later directly on to the hard drive stored within the device. This very conveniently eliminates the need to store a multitude of cassette tapes, or even DVDs, and allows you to say a not so fond farewell to those hurried moments of scurrying around at the last moment, desperately trying to lay your hands on a blank tape before you miss the all-important first five minutes of your show. Most of the hard drives included in these digital video recorders are rather large, meaning that you can store almost as many shows as you would like – you'll never again have to wait for re-runs to see that episode you loved so much.

But surely this capacity to store shows on the digital video recorders hard drive is something of a disadvantage too – doesn't it eliminate also the portability of the cassette tapes we used previously? Does this mean that we can't share shows that we've taped with our friends, or bring the recording with us when we visit their homes? On the contrary, digital video recorders are more share-friendly than ever. Shows stored on the unit's hard drive can be transferred to DVDs, offering you that same convenience or portability you enjoyed before. But digital video recorders can also allow you send the shows you have taped over the Internet, meaning that sharing recordings is more instantaneous than ever before.

The barrage of new technology that hits us almost every day can undoubtedly be daunting, but much of it is actually quite easy to master. You don't necessarily have to understand the nitty-gritty of a digital recorder's innards to be able to enjoy the simple convenience it offers. And once you master the recorder's simple operations, you'll never go back to those burdensome cassette tapes.