Month: May 2010

If you’ve spent much time playing around with Apple’s iPhone or iPod touch apps, you’ve probably come across one of the many drawing applications. These fun to use finger drawing games quickly pass the time away. But now there is a new twist to drawing with your hands called SpinArt by Brian Smith. This fun little application, which only cost $.99, lets you draw using over fifty different colors, including a glider option, with your choice of three different sized brushes. But there’s more! The fun comes when you whirl your canvas around as you splatter paint wherever your heart desires, creating beautiful spinning effects.

SpinArt is a simple program to pick up and use. There are three actions that one can choose from. The first is draw. This button, located on the top left-hand corner of the action palate is indicated by a collage of color. If clicked on, then you are free to choose one of the three different sized brushes by which you can draw. The stroke of the brush ends up looking like a splat of paint on the canvas. The second option is the Spin affect. The button is self explanatory with a picture of a spinning canvas and circular arrows. Chose this option and then using your figure, spin the canvas as fast or slow as you want it to go. The last option is the Settings button indicated by a star icon. When you click on the star a menu pops up giving you the options of a new canvas, saving the photo onto your iPhone or iPod, joining Flickr, or receiving more information about SpinArt.

The fun with SpinArt is that not only can you draw the image you have in your head simply by running your finger across a screen, but you can spin your canvas in circles while splashing paint across the board creating effects that simple point and paint apps haven’t dreamed of before. And there’s more. Your canvas doesn’t have to start out white as a sheet. You can start with a solid color by choosing that color before you erase the current canvas or choose a picture from your own photo library. The beautiful circular effects that paint on a spinning canvas produces will spruce up any one of your photos.

This fun little application is geared towards an audience who just want to have fun. Creating art has never been easier than it is with technology and now we can create modern art with just a touch of the finger. From young children old enough to hold an iPhone or iPod to the young at heart, this app is perfect for them all.

What’s unique about this application is the variety of images that you’re able to create with simply a few colors and brushes. The spinning affect on the canvas is a spectacular idea and one that is worth every one of the 99 cents it costs to play with. While there is currently no “light” version of this application and one must commit to the full version upfront, it comes highly recommended for it’s unique qualities and potential. It’s simply a whirl of fun.

Losing weight and staying fit is a goal for many. New technologies are always coming along to help us with our goals. With so many fitness gadgets on the market, the big question becomes which are good (because they can actually help you build muscle and lose weight), which are bad, and which are just plain crazy. Let’s have a look at a few fitness gadgets these from each category.

The Good

The good can help you build muscle or lose weight. Some can even do both, depending on the gadget.

Nintendo Wii – If you though the Nintendo Wii gaming console was just another game machine you’d be wrong. This revolutionary game console offers some terrific fitness programs, including Cardio Boxing, Wii Fit, and Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum to name just a few. Yoga, Pilates, cardio, strength training, and sports are all just a disc away in your home. Many a couch potato has become a fitness buff since the Nintendo Wii.

Walk Vest – If you haven’t heard of the walk vest, it’s a heavy black vest that comes with eight pounds of weight up to sixteen pounds in the biggest vest. You increase the weight of the vest by placing weights in the pockets. It also includes a workout CD. It may not be pretty but it definitely makes your walk more effective.

IPod Shuffle – If you don’t consider the iPod shuffle a fitness gadget you’d be wrong. It’s a great way to take your mind off your taxing workout and keep you pushing on. After all listening to your favorite music can be energizing in itself.

The Ab Wheel – The ab wheel has you grab the handles located on each side and then you roll it along the floor as you stretch out. It’s a simple idea. Whether there’s any real value is debatable since the same benefit could be enjoyed from a crunch, but it may get a beginner going who might otherwise not get a great ab workout.

The Bad

While they may work, they just seem like a bad idea all around.

The Fitness Cube – The sales pitch is around how it will transform your body and take up little space in your home. It can be used as a chair, and hides a variety of accessories. Whether it’s got any real value appears to be a negative, although the infomercial is pretty funny.

The Perfect Pushup – If you thought the pushup was above being improved, you’d be wrong. The perfect pushup is a device with rubber bottoms and swivel handled mounts. The grip rotation lets you take your pushup to a new level. The question is whether there’s any real fitness value and the answer is no.

The Crazy

What fun would it be if we didn’t mention a couple of the crazy fitness ideas that have come to be.

iGallop – The iGallop is designed to simulate a horseback ride, working the thighs, lower back, and abdomen. That said Pilates are a much better workout.

Shake Weight – The object to Shake Weight is to have inertia tighten and tone your arms using vibration. Whether it works or not is really unknown but logic would say no. It is however one of the craziest devices we’ve seen.

There you have it. The good, the bad, and the crazy. It would seem that while fitness gadgets can certainly help build muscle and lose weight, they can also do nothing. Before wasting your money on something you won’t use–or that will break the first time you try it–it’s important to do some research. Read reviews online and follow your favorite health and fitness blogs. If you choose your fitness gadgets carefully, you might have a tool that can help you reach your goals; if you don’t choose carefully, you’ll just end up with more clutter that will end up in the garage.

The training and career services assistance at New Horizons was outstanding! As a result, I received two job offers in one week. Thank you very much for all of the job leads and I want you to know that I would recommend New Horizons as my number one choice for a training center. You have an excellent staff and trainers, and I loved the hands-on learning style that many schools do not offer.

~Paul J. Baur, 2007 Cisco student

 

New Horizons of Boston Becomes Cisco Sponsored Organization

New Horizons of Boston is proud to announce that it has become a Cisco Sponsored Organization, joining an elite group of Cisco authorized training providers under the sponsorship of New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Inc.

Cisco Learning Solutions Partners (CLSP) and Sponsored Organizations are the only companies that are authorized to provide Cisco training. As a Sponsored Organization, Cisco’s first level of learning partnership, New Horizons of Boston trains on all of Cisco’s newest technologies and can customize training to support any client’s specific requirements.

As a Cisco Sponsored Organization, New Horizons of Boston offers:

Content authorized by Cisco and created by Cisco product teams

Certified Cisco instructors

The latest Cisco learning content

Virtual practice labs and simulations using up-to-date Cisco

 equipment to help you prepare for Cisco exams

To receive FREE information about Boston-area authorized Cisco training, visit www.ciscotrainingboston.com.

About New Horizons Learning Centers of Boston

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers of Boston provides learning solutions that help organizations achieve business results, such as increasing productivity and efficiencies, driving revenue, and reducing costs. New Horizons provides customer-focused training choices in multiple formats and delivery methods, offering organizations and individuals top-quality training that can be tailored to meet individual learning styles and specific needs.

Whether you are in search of a solution for the complex training needs of a large, multi-location business, or you are an individual seeking the skills to excel in a new or blossoming career path, New Horizons is your integrated learning solution.

New Horizons of Boston offers Desktop Applications Training, Technical Training, Certification Programs, Business Productivity Solutions, Professional Services and Enterprise Learning Solutions.

Apple news: People have been searching all over the since the last few weeks for apple announcement,apple press conference, apple tablet announcement time, steve jobs announcement, apple, apple press conference 2010, apple press conference live, apple press conference January 2010, apple press release.

After months of guesses and speculations the wait is over.

Apple head Steve Jobs unveiled the very thin iPad tablet computer and claimed that it will offer the best browsing experience one can have like holding the internet in the hand.

The Apple Tablet will have email, photos,  maps, built in itunes store and youtube functionality.Jobs also demonstrated the the iPad visiting the home pages of the New York times, Time Magazine and Fandango.

Jobs showed a quick view of the email and moved on to the photos. One can switch the device from portrait to landscape view. Users can get events, places and faces as well as flick left or right through photos. He further showed the slideshow of Paris on the Ipad. In calendars, users can drag their fingers over the events to get a weekly or a daily view.

Jobs went on to the maps application and viewed the Eiffel Tower, taps a corner to go to a satellite view. Then he moved onto the events current location in San Francisco. He then typed in sushi using the ipad virtual keyboard and found nearby sushi places, which showed one local sushi restaurant called Sushi Boat. Jobs then showed off youtube videos, played an HD video of a surfing dog.

The Ipad features, specifications and price:

The apple ipad is 0.5 inches thin, weights 1.5 pounds, thinner and lighter than any netbook. It has a 9.7 inch IPS display and full multi toiuch screen. Further the device would be powered by Apple’s own custom silicon chip. The battery would last upto 10 hours.

The apple ipad will be available with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of Flash storage. It will also have wi-fi,bluetooth, speaker, microphone, compass and 30 pin connector to plug into iPod accessories.

Price of ipad: $499 for 16GB, non 3G, 32GB would cost $599 and 64GB will carry a price tag of $699. For a 3G model, the 16Gb will be for $629, 32GB will cost  $729 and 64GB will be priced for $829.

While many people use gps systems to help them find their way, there are other uses to be found with these units. One such use is that of the mapping that is performed by geological groups, surveyors, construction units and other professional to whom this mapping of various locations is a necessity. There are various appliances where mapping gps abilities have been designed in.

These mapping gps devises can help the professional who needs this information to receive correct information. The gps systems will use their atomic clocks and the signals they receive from about 4 to 6 gps satellites to calculate the area to be mapped. As each section of the area coordinates are fed into the receiver the surveyor or map maker will be able to plot this information down.

From the various data that is gathered a detailed map can be made. This map will contain all of the data that many people consider as being absolutely necessary. You will find the mapping gps systems to take note of the terrain that is around the mapper’s receiving radius. This will mean that flat terrain and the distance it remains flat will be noted down.

Any obstacles like mountains, rivers, large bodies of water will also be located with the signals received from the gps satellites. Once all of this information has been received the gps system will have an accurate picture of the location the receiver is located in. The mapping gps coordinates will also be able to be found and stored in the memory of the gps unit.

Many software companies have realized the need for accurate mapping information. To this end they have developed various software that will allow mapping gps coordinates to be downloaded into your gps receiver via your computer. You will find these software on the internet. You should however make sure that you are downloading a trust worthy site as other wise you will not be able to receive any data with mapping gps capabilities.

You will find many different uses for mapping that is carried out with the aid of a gps system. Among these uses is the finding of environmental topographical information. Where these surface environmental entities are found the location coordinates of the various areas can then be mapped.

By using a mapping gps system the gps receivers can provide you with information about various localities. Using this information you can find your way through that terrain without getting lost or into any major difficulties. Mapping gps applications are just one more way that technology can help us out.