Thursday, April 18, 2013

How far in advance should one book long haul flights?

Long Haul flights often seem more expensive 10 months in advance than they are 3-4 months before departure; for short haul it's exactly the opposite.

Price for UK to China return flights in high season (July-August) for one adult and two children over 2:
2 Feb     £1,782
26 Mar   £1,752
18 Apr   £1,731

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Why MacBook Pro's battery never show a full charge 100%?

Whenever my MacBook's battery is 99% full, it stays there and never become full charged (100%). This is normal. The batteries used in Macs are designed to avoid continuous charging or short cycle charging, i.e. the battery drops 1 or 2 % then charges back to 99%, which will shorten battery life. It is the best to let the battery run down to below 40% every now and then and then do a full recharge (between 95-99%).

When setting the Mac OS X battery status menu bar icon to display charge state by percentage, you may notice that the reported charge stays between 95 percent and 99 percent. The adapter will not charge the battery to 100% automatically if it will add additional wear to the battery.
Therefore, if your battery status stays at 95-99% and not charging you can disconnect the charger.

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Common display resolutions

AcronymAspect ratioWidth (px)Height (px) 
FHD16:919201080 
HD+16:91600900 
HD~16:91366768 
SXGA5:412801024 LCD monitors
XGA4:31024768 
WSXGA+16:1016801050 
WXGA+16:101440900 
WXGA16:101280800Wide aspects
UXGA4:316001200gamers, graphic artists

Computer monitors have higher resolutions than most televisions. As of July 2002, 1024 × 768 Extended Graphics Array was the most common display resolution. Many web sites and multimedia products were re-designed from the previous 800 × 600 format to the layouts optimized for 1024 × 768. The availability of inexpensive LCD monitors has made the 5:4 aspect ratio resolution of 1280 × 1024 more popular for desktop usage.

Many computer users including CAD users, graphic artists and video game players run their computers at 1600 × 1200 resolution (UXGA) or higher if they have the necessary equipment. Other recently available resolutions include oversize aspects like 1400 × 1050 SXGA+ and wide aspects like 1280 × 800 WXGA, 1440x900 WXGA+, 1680 × 1050 WSXGA+, and 1920 × 1200 WUXGA. A new more-than-HD resolution of 2560 × 1600 WQXGA was released in 30" LCD monitors in 2007. In 2010, 27" LCD monitors with the resolution 2560 × 1440 were released by multiple manufacturers including Apple, and in 2012 Apple introduced a 2880 × 1800 display on the MacBook Pro. Panels for professional environments, such as medical use and air traffic control, support resolutions up to 4096 × 2160.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Scotland: Highlands & Islands, Central Scotland, and Lowlands

Britain's most/least affordable cities

Most affordable cities, including ratio of prices vs wages
1. Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 3.38
2. Lisburn, Northern Ireland, 3.50
3. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 3.67
4. Stirling, Scotland, 3.81
5. Bradford, Yorkshire and the Humber, 3.98
6. Salford, North West, 4.11
7. Glasgow, Scotland, 4.23
8. Lancaster, North, 4.28
9. Hull, Yorkshire and the Humber, 4.32
10. Sunderland, North, 4.43


Least affordable cities
1. Oxford, South East, 9.66
2. Salisbury, South West, 8.57
3. Bath, South West, 8.23
4. Truro, South West, 8.15
5. Winchester, South East, 8.04
6. Brighton and Hove, South East, 7.67
7. Cambridge, East Anglia, 7.55
8. Chichester, South East, 7.44
9. Exeter, South West, 7.25
10. St Albans, South East, 7.09

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Are iPhone ipod ipad chargers same?

All iPods (excluding iPod Touch 5 {Latest, launched Sep 2012})
iPhone
iPhone 3G
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPhone 4S
iPad
iPad 2
iPad 3
All use the 30-pin dock connector and

iPhone 5
iPod Touch 5
iPad 4
iPad Mini
use the Lightning charger (or Thunderbolt charger).

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The most popular 3D formats



  • 3D Studio Max 3DS
  • Wavefront obj
  • ply is the a computer file format known as the Polygon File Format or the Stanford Triangle Format. The format was principally designed by the Stanford graphics lab to store three dimensional data from 3D scanners. Can also be used as alternative to STL.
  • STL is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. This file format is supported by many other software packages; it is widely used for rapid prototyping and computer-aided manufacturing.
  • wrl (vrml)/x3d/x3dv. X3D is the successor of VRML, but VRML remains popular in open-source and academics.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

X3DOM not working in Firefox

Firefox should support WebGL natively. If your Firefox browser shows that WebGL is not supported and your display driver is not blacklisted, try the following:

  1. Type about:config in Firefox address line
  2. Type in the search box webgl
  3. Set webgl.force-enabled = true
  4. Close the browser and launch it again

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) in the UK

MVNO stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator . An MVNO is a mobile provider that doesn't own its own mobile network . Instead, it b...