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On the Importance of Backups February 24, 2010

Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Computers, Teen Info , add a comment

The last thing a Mac ever displays…

For computers today, backing up a hard drive is easy. Really easy. Macs – you have Time Machine; Windows – dozens of alternatives. But, chances are, YOU, the teenager reading this – don’t. Because, you (like me) are lazy. After all, the backup popup (“You haven’t backed up your files in a while – would you like to now?”) serves to annoy and is ignored more often then not, and the odds of YOUR hard drive failing – when does that happen?

The point of all this? Well, actually, there is one. See, about two weeks ago, my laptop’s hard drive failed. Everything – gone. 3 years of schoolwork, documents, pictures, projects, movies, music, applications – everything from the template to my school’s newspaper to my pictures from summer camp – totally gone. I suddenly was that guy – and man, did I wish that I had backed up some of this stuff – schoolwork especially.

If I can, through these years of writing, get one thing out to you, it is this – don’t mess around with backups. Yes, I know that many of you reading this won’t care – the odds are against it – but trust me: you don’t want this to happen to you. If you don’t want to do a whole backup drive – use a flashdrive to hold your most important stuff, or use Dropbox and store it in the cloud.

But seriously – learn from my mistakes. TeenTechBlog exists to help you – teens – with tech. I’m trying right now to help you – I had a few files on Dropbox, which at least had some recent school stuff. If your computer goes down, you don’t want to deal with data loss too.

But go now – open your document folder, and copy some stuff to a drive. You won’t regret it.

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More then Just Chips – Intel Youth Rock Stars Summit February 10, 2010

Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Computers, Teen Info , add a comment
Shiny.
So I, along with some other really smart bloggers, (was great to meet everyone, by the way), were at Intel HQ a few days back at the Intel Youth Rock Star Summit. Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve been up to:
We first had a discussion on netbooks, particularly in the role they provide in a school space as opposed to a full size laptop, particularly in regard to the Atom Processor. Basically, the idea there is that the netbook is meant to be an accessory to your main laptop – something portable for use on the go. Due to its high portability and low price points, it’s becoming an ideal option as a single laptop for note taking, provided nothing too heavy needs to run.
Next, we had a discussion and Q/A session with Intel Fellow and Engeneer Mario Paccania, regarding the new Intel Light Peak technology – basically, a new form of computer connection that is based on optical (fiber optic, or light-based) cables to transmit data. The cool thing? 10 GB per SECOND transfer speed – or insanely, insanely, fast. This is going to be huge when it launches. Also, it’s based on USB, so it’s fully backwards compatible with USB 3.0, 2.0, and 1.0 as well.
We heard about the new tech in the latest Intel laptops, particurly the Core i3, i5, and i7 devices; we saw the Dell XPS Adamo, the thinnest computer in the world – mind blowingly thin (seriously, you could cut carrots with this one). We also got to see WiDi – wireless display stuff: hook up box to TV. Press button on laptop. And magically the TV now wirelessly displays the laptop’s output. Sweet for watching stuff with friends. Just worked simply and easily, and was seriously cool to see.
Lunch was fun, with an interesting debate on Apple’s latest iPad – and the role of it, if any, in the student life, particularly related to content creation vs. consumption. Interesting to see different takes on that, and to discuss the role of content creation vs. consumption, and even the levels of it.
After lunch, we got to see two seriously, seriously cool things: Intel Dispute Finder, and Home Energy Management. Dispute Finder, designed as a plug-in, is meant to counteract the unfortunate problem  that among wealth of media that now people on the internet (like this blog, for instance), some of it is not true. Dispute Finder would highlight disputed information and point you towards a site that you trust to help you understand opinions and perspectives to that information. Quite cool.
Home Energy Management was also seriously impressive. Through one integrated box located on your wall, you can monitor numerous aspects of your home – heating, AC, security — in a simple, organized fashion. Trust me, this is cool – like sci-fi movie cool. It monitors energy use, makes suggestions to save you money, lets you turn on and off stuff, set up profiles for your HOUSE for different times, like you can with a phone.
Afterwards, we had an interesting discussion about marketing and outreach to teens and college students, concluding that Google and Apple are considered the best at getting the market attention of teens. How to get teens to notice stuff was the question, which got some interesting answers and ideas on.
Next, we visited Intel’s Tera-Scale computing lab, hidden deep in the Intel Headquarters. This place was insane – you’ve probably heard of dual core chips. Or quad core. The newest stuff right now has 8-core chips. In this lap – try 80-cores. That’s effectively 80 computers. On one chip. We saw some stuff running on the smaller 48-core chips, and it was sweet – stuff like automatically enhancing pixalated pictures – enough to read far away, blurry text, as well as smoothing jitterey cell phone videos, to digital 3D scanning and rendering for use in a game – from a dozen still webcam images. Live traffic tracking.
And of course, everyone’s favorite, the awesome augmented reality ball game – which took a bunch of bouncing Intel balls that you could interact with on webcam, in real time.
After that, we went over to the Gaming Benchmarking Lab, where they do benchmarking for the latest Intel chips. Pictures speak louder then words on this one – that’s a LOT of computers…
So, that’s it. All in all, an incredible experience. Got to see some seriously cool stuff, meet some seriously cool people, and if there’s one message I can give you guys that I took away from this, it’s that there’s a LOT more to Intel than just the chips.
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Cramberry – Online Flashcards May 21, 2009

Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Computers, First Look/Reviews, Teen Info , add a comment

Picture 2

Cramberry. Online Studying, with Awesome.

Finals season is coming, and that means its time to break out the books to cram, with of the famous rubber-banded decks of flash-cards. Which brings me to this post.

I use flashcards a lot, especially on vocab or language tests, requiring memorization of large amounts of words. However, I also don’t like flashcards – I hate making them, I hate when I lose one or two and miss studying those on a test, and they’re just overall annoying.

Enter Cramberry.net – an online flashcard site that allows you to make flashcards digitally, and study them there. The site is very simple, and very smooth, allowing you not only to easily create your own deck of flashcards but share them too- with your classmates, or the world- via posting a main site, accessible to all; if you need a set on U.S. State Capitals, for examples, you’re in luck: you can find it without writing a word. It also tracks progress on the cards as you review them, and shows cards you get wrong more to help learn them. Furthermore, through a compatible iPhone app called Flash-Me, you can access your cards on the go (costs $4, though, and I haven’t been able to try it out).

Interested in making your own? Easy. Just make an account, and create a new deck. Then write up the front and back of each ‘card’ in your deck, and the site offers a quiz in which they randomize the cards and present either the front or back of each card, you testing yourself to know its other side. As you’re going, it even slips in the ones you initially answered incorrectly to guarantee you know the cards and will ace the test. Also, foreign languages work, so you can study for language classes without hassle, which is a nice plus.

In short, Cramberry is a simple, useful tool that allows you to study flashcards easily and effectively- and its free. So check it out and good luck on those finals.

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Apple Introduces New iPods – First Take September 10, 2008

Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Mp3 players and iPods, Music, Teen Info , 1 comment so far

ooooooo – Colorful.

Alrighty everyone, the biggest news of the week just landed. As Apple tends to do around the pre-holiday season (like now), they announced today the new updates to their iPod lines. (more…)

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Teen Ink: Make Yourself Heard June 27, 2008

Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Teen Info , 2comments

Want to be the next TeenTechBlog? Dont count on it lol, but for those among us who share our desire to express ourselves to the broader world despite not yet even at drinking age, we would like to inform you about about an incredible institution, TeenInk.

Founded in 1989, TeenInk publishes submitted work written by teenagers (at no charge for submission) in their national monthly magazine, their website, and if you’re good enough, their books of collected works. Sorry– they dont pay you for your work.

But if it offers any consolation, we don’t make a penny off this blog either. Check it out! And if you do write something, or have written for them in the past, let us know in the comments.

Picture of Books published by Teen Ink


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