This is a review of the AAXA Pico mini projector, based on use over a month.
Brightness: The Pico offers adequate brightness at short range in daylight at normal monitor size of 15-22". In a completely dark room, the image is bright at 24" and adequate at 42" The picture is low-resolution but certainly adequate for videos.
Convenience: The size of a pack of cigarettes, the projector is easily pocketed. Use with an iPhone/iTouch, however, is inconvenient, especially with the short cord supplied as an extra.
The device, however, can also be used alone or with iPhone/iTouch or periferals such as a digital TV tuner or the Netflix TV device. These items worked well. Use alone is most convenient.
Comparison: Since the device is marketed for use with the iPhone/iTouch, an evaluation is needed here. Does the iPhone expand the usefulness of the projector? The short answer is no.
The iPhone iTouch small screens are themselves mostly preferable for individual viewing. More important, iPhone/iTouch AV does not provide a picture to the Pico at all much of the time, for example, the desktop/springboard, Safari browser, the weather channel. The latter limitation greatly diminishes usefulness of the Pico.
Based on all the above, then, the best use of the AAXA Pico is in the dark without any other auxiliary equipment, such as for viewing a movie downloaded to it. The Pico is put to its best advantage in projecting a large picture to the ceiling in the dark, for example in a hotel room or hospital. For such use a vertical bracket would be desirable to hold it in place. A bracket is also really needed for horizontal projection.
The device looks substantial except possibly for the light rubber lens cap and the plastic battery cover. External headphones or speaker(s) are mandatory; the speaker volume is extremely low.
Summary: The Pico excels at use without other equipment in the dark, especially for overhead projection. It is not recommended here for use with the iPhone/iTouch. However, use with Netflix box might be handy. Use with a digital TV tuner worked but requires an antenna for good reception.
For seniors, such as with wheelchair and small attached screen, use is impractcial. Hopefully such uses will be developed for the handicapped..
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
All About Links
Some of you have asked about those techspeak "links" that appear in my columns and are a mystery to some of you.
Here is one:
http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_lee.htm
What is it, and why is it there?
Well, links are simply places to go for more information. You click on them and another document appears on your computer. Or you search for a page (a link) which has some of the key words in it that you expect to find in a document.
But is there a spook which will come out from them and jump at you, worse a virus, or someone who will steal your identity, or cause physical harm? Maybe. Neither you nor the computer may know exactly what you will find until you find it. Even after you find it, it may change.
But relax, links are basically our friends. There is no danger unless you respond to a questionable link.
Links are the building blocks of the WorldWideWeb. They are the spiderweb threads which connect the web together.
So how did they came about?
Back in the early days, some 20 years ago (wasn't that a long time ago?), the tech people at CERN, the nuclear accelerator in Switzerland, and (boy is that tech) had a problem.
Some tech people were doing things that other tech people knew nothing about. Or duplicating work. Very inefficient. CERN tried indexes and table of contents, but the information problem was so great that these solutions did not work. There was just too much information to handle and no efficient way to get what you wanted.
The problem was handed to Tim Berners-Lee.
Tim tried everything and finally came up with a nontech idea. Why not let the computer goes through ALL the information in all the computers and check it out. After all a computer can go through huge amounts of information in seconds. An absolutely enormous amount of info was called a "google"---(no, there was no Google then).
The computer would then come back with links to information of POSSIBLE interest. Was this like a footnote? Absolutely not. No, the computer had no idea what was relevant or not, but it could narrow down to a very few possibilities. We call the computer capability nowadays a search engine. We call the place to ask this question a "browser". The computer browses the "library" of information.
The links would link to other links and these to yet others. That was the idea.
Well, curiously possibly nobody had thought of this before. A browser (reader) was then created to look at information.
The first browser was actually called "Lynx". Get the idea? The WorldWideWeb is simply a totally unorganized database connected by links. A new kind of library or database or encyclopedia. The browser browses links just like a reader browses books in a library.
Crucially, Sir Tim found a way to build links into documents themselves, so that information could be connected together, rather than viewed as separate and distinct pieces of data. Goodbye to tables of contents and indexes. You could almost instantly go anywhere, find anything.
All this solved the problem at CERN. Done. An unbelievably simple idea worked, and Tim was knighted for it by the Queen of England. Tim is still quite a young man; all this was less than 20 years ago.
In a word, my links here are to sources of information of possible interest. That's all.
Here is a link:
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkMyths.html
from the creator of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee in the early days.
Here is another, Tim's basic proposal from 1990
http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html
Then, way back (??) in 1945 Vanevar Bush almost foresaw what was needed, though he did not know how to get it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush/4
Links are a way to keep us connected. Just the thing for seniors. A good way for all of us to keep connected.
Can you get a virus from links? No. But you can get a virus if you respond to anything foreign and unknown and invite them in, just like letting a stranger in your front door.
Here is one:
http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_lee.htm
What is it, and why is it there?
Well, links are simply places to go for more information. You click on them and another document appears on your computer. Or you search for a page (a link) which has some of the key words in it that you expect to find in a document.
But is there a spook which will come out from them and jump at you, worse a virus, or someone who will steal your identity, or cause physical harm? Maybe. Neither you nor the computer may know exactly what you will find until you find it. Even after you find it, it may change.
But relax, links are basically our friends. There is no danger unless you respond to a questionable link.
Links are the building blocks of the WorldWideWeb. They are the spiderweb threads which connect the web together.
So how did they came about?
Back in the early days, some 20 years ago (wasn't that a long time ago?), the tech people at CERN, the nuclear accelerator in Switzerland, and (boy is that tech) had a problem.
Some tech people were doing things that other tech people knew nothing about. Or duplicating work. Very inefficient. CERN tried indexes and table of contents, but the information problem was so great that these solutions did not work. There was just too much information to handle and no efficient way to get what you wanted.
The problem was handed to Tim Berners-Lee.
Tim tried everything and finally came up with a nontech idea. Why not let the computer goes through ALL the information in all the computers and check it out. After all a computer can go through huge amounts of information in seconds. An absolutely enormous amount of info was called a "google"---(no, there was no Google then).
The computer would then come back with links to information of POSSIBLE interest. Was this like a footnote? Absolutely not. No, the computer had no idea what was relevant or not, but it could narrow down to a very few possibilities. We call the computer capability nowadays a search engine. We call the place to ask this question a "browser". The computer browses the "library" of information.
The links would link to other links and these to yet others. That was the idea.
Well, curiously possibly nobody had thought of this before. A browser (reader) was then created to look at information.
The first browser was actually called "Lynx". Get the idea? The WorldWideWeb is simply a totally unorganized database connected by links. A new kind of library or database or encyclopedia. The browser browses links just like a reader browses books in a library.
Crucially, Sir Tim found a way to build links into documents themselves, so that information could be connected together, rather than viewed as separate and distinct pieces of data. Goodbye to tables of contents and indexes. You could almost instantly go anywhere, find anything.
All this solved the problem at CERN. Done. An unbelievably simple idea worked, and Tim was knighted for it by the Queen of England. Tim is still quite a young man; all this was less than 20 years ago.
In a word, my links here are to sources of information of possible interest. That's all.
Here is a link:
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkMyths.html
from the creator of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee in the early days.
Here is another, Tim's basic proposal from 1990
http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html
Then, way back (??) in 1945 Vanevar Bush almost foresaw what was needed, though he did not know how to get it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush/4
Links are a way to keep us connected. Just the thing for seniors. A good way for all of us to keep connected.
Can you get a virus from links? No. But you can get a virus if you respond to anything foreign and unknown and invite them in, just like letting a stranger in your front door.
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