Category Archives: Computers & Electronics

Want to Buy the Raspberry Pi?

Computers & Electronics, Shopping

If you have heard all of the buzz about the Raspberry Pi recently, which is a computer that you can buy for around £22, then you may be wondering where you can buy the Raspberry Pi?

Well the buzz has been so big that stocks of the small personal computer have already sold out on their launch date. However, more stocks are on the way and although currently you can only buy one piece per order, bulk orders will soon be possible.

The development of the Raspberry Pi was inspired to make schoolchildren more keen on getting into the coding and development of programs that children of the 80’s used to do on simple basic computers like the ZX Spectrum. The ‘computer’ doesn’t come in a case but instead is just a motherboard that can be connected to a monitor or TV.

In future many more jobs will involve some kind of coding or computer programming and the launch of the Raspberry Pi is hoped to encourage schoolchildren to build on these skills and thus be more employable.

Two companies are currently distributing the Raspberry Pi and they are:

Premier Farnell and RS Components 

Web Traffic From Portland Oregon

Computers & Electronics, Internet

As website developers we have a number of websites on the go right now and it seems that something strange is happening in the Google Analytics stats. Quite a few websites have been showing increased views so I did a bit of investigating on why this might be and found something strange.

A number of websites have a bunch of direct traffic from Portland, Oregon, US. This traffic is direct (i.e. not coming through a search engine) and it has a 100% bounce rate and zero time spent on the site. This leads me to believe that this Portland Oregon web traffic is being sent by some kind of automated system. By why would anyone bother doing this? What would be the point and what would they achieve by doing it? Maybe it is some kind of testing.

Also is it only a small number of websites that this is happening to or are there other people that are affected? Maybe if you have got to this page then you are experiencing the same weird direct traffic from Portland, Oregon. If you are then please let me know by leaving a comment and if you have any idea why this might be happening we would be interested to hear from you.

How To Add a Network Place

Computers & Electronics, Internet,

When Microsoft change things with each new edition of the Windows sofware it can sometimes be difficult to find how to do something that you thought was pretty simple and commonplace in the past. One example of this for me was to use ‘Add Network Place’ when you wanted to connect to a folder that was on a website where you had documents or images stored – previously this was a pretty simple thing to do.

But now in Windows 7 I have found that it seems to be hidden in the depths of things and is not immediately obvious.

Anyway, to add a network place in Microsoft Windows 7 you need to do this:

Open Windows Explorer
Click on Tools
Map Network Drive
At the bottom of the next dialog box you have the link to ‘Connect to a website that you use to store your documents and pictures’
After that you just need to enter the website address and you are sorted.

You will then find the link under the Computer section in the left hand folders menu.

Games: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Computers & Electronics, Games, , ,

Call of Duty Modern Warefare 3 is realeased on 8th November and is now available for pre-order. There is still a lot of buzz about this third installment of the Modern Warfare branch of the Call of Duty video games, which is available on PS3, XBox 360.

The game, which is a first person action warfare game which mainly involves US troops against those of a fictional Russian Federation, adds some improvements to the previous Modern Warfare 2 game to which it is a sequel, which include much improved multi-player games and an expanded toolkit to increase your choice of play style.

Check out further details of the improvements in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 by checking out the links below and pre-order now for a guaranteed lowest price.

   

Gadgets Priced the Same in Pounds and Dollars

Business, Computers & Electronics, ,

So recently we have been comparing the prices of some gadgets in pounds and dollars and there seems to be a great discrepancy for some reason. So why are a lot of gadgets priced the same in pounds as they are in dollars? (if not more).

One particular item in question is the new cheap Kindle. In Amazon in the US you can get hold of this Kindle for $79 yes in the UK you have to pay £89. Why is this? If you use the current exchange rate of pounds to dollars  of around 1.6 dollars being equivalent to a pound then £89 equates to $142 – which means that the price is 80% higher than in the States – which is pretty ridiculous.

            

If anyone has any input about why the prices of gadgets and technology in the UK are so much higher than in the US then please leave your comments below as we would be interested to hear.

This is just one example but if you look at other gadgets then they also seem to have a similar pricing structure so why are people int he UK suffering with higher prices?