Can you fondly remember the days when eating unlimited quantities of food never seemed to lead to gaining and excess body fat? Now, we may think, one simply has to look at food and it goes straight to the hips and waistline. There is one major culprit to blame for that, our metabolism which is our body’s engine. As we age, our metabolism slows down and we burn less fuel over the course of the day. For many of us, it seems we always have had a slow metabolism as we have been battling excess weight for most of our lives.
If you have ever attempted to lose weight, then you know how difficult of a struggle it can be. There are some key principals that, when applied, will immensely increase your success at losing weight and attaining your goals. Most of us will fight the battle of the bulge at several points during our lifetime, and many of us will lose this battle every single time. We hear that diets don’t work and can adversely alter our metabolism which is the exact opposite of what we need to do. The key to successful permanent weight (fat) loss is not about counting calories or fat grams. The most effective and significant thing which you can do to increase the rate at which you lose body fat is by increasing the metabolism. This is the rate at which your body utilizes energy (burns fuel) which regulates your body’s ability to become (and stay) lean. And shifting your metabolism depends on upgrading your strength and muscle toning while supporting yourself with good nutrition. A new insight reveals there is a type of exercise called “hormonal” and is the best and quickest way to burn stubborn body fat. In fact you achieve three times the results from your exercise program in half the time with this new type of exercise program. When these amazing “fitness” hormones are triggered, the fat-burning process in your body is accelerated. The exercise program that releases more amounts of these “youth” hormones must include at least 60% strength training exercise and cardio interval training. In order for these hormones to be released as a result of exercise, the activity must have brief periods of high intensity alternated with rest periods. There is just no way around this; it has to be pretty demanding for it to work. Because of the nature of this type of program it should be set up by a fitness professional to ensure safely and effectiveness. This is not your bicep curls with weeny dumbbells in front of the television neither is it a quick walk around the neighborhood. There are many tools and techniques to generate the hormonal effects of exercise and none of them include long duration, steady state “20 minutes on the bike” or “aerobic zone” training. This new technology and understanding dictates that real fat burning takes place at higher levels of intensities Since many of us learn about nutrition and dieting from misleading information in magazines and the media, we are confused when our weight loss attempts are unsuccessful. The key to successful, permanent weight loss is not about counting calories or fat grams; it’s about improving and “waking up” the body’s metabolism. People spend billions of dollars every year on quick fix weight-loss solutions. Yet, these “solutions” are either temporary or they cause more problems than they solve such as slowing the metabolism and punishing the soul. Whether you want to lose 10 pounds or 100, the key is to avoid gimmicks and quick fixes and focus on sustainable changes that produce lasting results. The only surefire way to lose that body fat and maintain the loss over time is to focus on your strength and fitness.Archive for July, 2010
Advantages and Disadvantages of Plasma TV
Saturday, July 24th, 2010
Plasma televisions are becoming more and more popular in American households because of their amazing picture quality. Most people who are looking for a serious home theater start looking at plasma HDTV’s. Compared to LCD TV’s, they have much richer colors and the black and dark colors are much blacker. There are several advantages and disadvantages of owning plasma television. Learn the pro’s and con’s before you head out to the store.
Advantage #1 – Picture Quality
The main reasons people choose plasma over LCD, rear projection and front projectors is the picture quality. Because of the plasma technology, the colors displayed by plasma TV’s are superior to those of any other kind of television. Many people think that when the color black is displayed on their TV that it is actually black. However, most TV’s can’t actually display blacks. They are just dark shades of gray. Plasma TV’s produce very black blacks because of the plasma technology.
Advantage #2 – Screen Size
Plasma TV’s start in the 42 inch and higher range. If you are looking for a large TV, there are plenty of plasma options. LCD screens range from cell phone screens clear up to 65 inch televisions but a large plasma TV is typically a better buy than a LCD TV. If you are buying a plasma TV 50 inches or great, make sure you get a HDTV with 1080p resolution. 1080p is the highest possible resolution and if you are viewing a large screen TV, you will actually see the difference between 1080p and 720p. If it is a smaller TV, the difference is hardly noticeable and not worth the extra money.
Disadvantage #1 – Cost
Plasma TV’s are typically the most expensive televisions on the market. They used be nearly double or triple the price of similar LCD HDTV’s. The prices are slowly dropping due to advances in technology but you will usually pay more for a plasma TV than the same size in a LCD or rear projection television. Plasma TV’s also cost more to run because they require more power and electricity. It isn’t a major difference but over the course of a year, you might pay an extra couple hundred dollars in electricity bills.
Disadvantage #2 – Screen Size
Because plasma’s aren’t usually available in less than 42 inch screen size, you can’t get a smaller TV if you are limited to a certain size. Most flat panel owners are looking in the 30 and 40 inch range and you will find your options are somewhat limited if you are looking for a plasma television. If you are buying a smaller screen, you don’t have to have 1080p resolution. Many new TV’s come with 1080p but if you have the choice, a 720p might save you some money and you won’t even notice the difference.
Edge – Wifi Use on Your Iphone – How and Why?
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
So the iPhone works on EDGE networks. But what does this mean and is it good enough?
The iPhone has been designed to work on GPRS, EDGE and Wi-Fi networks but doesn’t include 3G support. Apple has stated this has to do with the power requirements of the 3G chip.
EDGE provides higher download speeds than the 2G network and GPRS (2.5G) but less than what can be achieved with Wi-Fi and 3G. and it has been labeled 2.75G.
The coverage of the EDGE networks around the world is very sparse, some places only 10s of percent actually. And that is disappointing numbers and not good news for the users of iPhone.
Trying to talk up the iPhone’s Wi-Fi compatibility and its deals for free hotspot are not doing the trick either.
EDGE is the existing standard for GSM data networks. GSM is a direct rival to CDMA. In the US, Cingular is the largest GSM provider.
EDGE offers service rated at about quarter Mb/sec. That’s about twice the speed of ISDN (.128 MB/sec), but significantly slower than even the slowest offerings of DSL (.3 to 1.5 Mb/sec), and a fraction of the throughput of 802.11b WiFi (typical: 6.5 Mb/sec).
EDGE is far faster than GPRS or old dialup networks however (both are about .03 Mb/sec), so while EDGE not capable of supporting iChat style video conferencing, it is useful enough to browse web pages, receive HTML emails, and support the other web service features demonstrated on the iPhone such as Google Maps.
EDGE is also widely deployed in the US. Newer generation technologies, including HSUPA and EVDO, are not. If the iPhone supported newer networks at launch, it would offer users less data service coverage at higher service fees. HSUPA does promise a future path for faster data, and will no doubt unlock new applications for future phones.
Along with the confusing acronym soup of HSDPA and HSOPA, HPUPA competes against other mobile 3G standards. Wikipedia says the next set of standards are edging out existing CDMA2000 and EVDO rollouts in some markets.
In addition to the factors of availability and cost, another reason for Apple going with EDGE rather than a faster network is that the iPhone won’t have to rely solely on mobile phone networks for data. It’s designed to use WiFi wherever it’s available.
WiFi is far faster than any mobile networks now in place, including EVDO and HSUPA (2.5 – 5.76 Mb/sec). Typical 802.11b and g offer 6.5 Mb/sec and 20 Mb/sec transfers. WiFi is so much faster because it is designed to serve a much smaller range of local service.
For iPhone users in a school, home, or office with existing WiFi service, automatic use of WiFi for data service will not only be far faster, but far cheaper: free in many cases.
Getting EDGE to work on your iPhone is simple, but require some knowledge about application set up in your iPhone.
You will need iBrickr to browse the file system of your iPhone (www.ibrikr.com)
There is a video turorial available for iBrickr if you want to learn how to use this system (www.i4u.com/article11028.html)
Once you have downloaded the iBrickr and the PXL files installed on your iPHone, you can launch iBrickr.exe. You will be able to see the main interface and click on files to browse your phone file system.
Locate your /private/var/root
Launch notepad and paste this code;
Function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
If (isInNet (myIpAddress(), “10.0.0.0”,
“255.0.0.0”))
Return “PROXY 216.155.165.50:808”;
Else
Return “DIRECT”
}
Save the file as proxy.pac and upload it to /private/var/root
Right click this file and select “save link as”, you need to save the file as
Preference.plist, you will then upload preference.plist into the following iPhone directory:
/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
NOTE! If you are on firmware 1.1.3, upload the preferences.plist to this directory;
/private/var/preferences/SystemConfiguration
This will overwrite the current file that is already in that directory.
Now grab your iPhone and tap settings – General – Network – EDGE. The APN you will use is wap.voicestream.com, username and password will be guest. Reboot your iPhone and there you are, you should be able to browsw online using EDGE.
NB! After performing this hack you will notice that EDGE will interfere with your WIFI connections whenever it sees it. IF this happens to you, there is a solution for this as well.
Click on the Browse Application button, this will launch a list of 3rd party applications you can install at your will. For our purpose we will install an application called Services. Basically what this does is allow you to turn off the WiFi, Bluetooth and EDGE according to your needs.
Once you are done with the installation, iPhone will reboot and on your Springboard you should see a Services icon, tap on the icon and here you can toggle between EDGE and WiFi connection.