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Why it's a good idea to own a USB-to-SATA adapter The USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter the most indispensable tool in my PC repair kit. Just this weekend, it once again proved itself worthy of that title. In a nutshell, the adapter allows you to connect an internal hard drive to your PC-externally. What would an internal drive be doing outside your desktop or laptop? Funny you should ask. About a week ago, my media-center PC starting displaying this message during boot-up: "Hard drive failure imminent." And you know what? It was. In short order, the machine wouldn't boot at all. Long story short, I had to replace the drive, reinstall Windows, etc. But I wondered if I could salvage any/all of my recorded TV shows. To find out, I connected the old, non-booting drive (now "naked" outside the system) to a USB port via my adapter. Huzzah! The machine was able to read the drive and copy over the recordings. Except for the hassles (and expense) of actually replacing the drive, no harm done. There's another reason to keep one of these adapters on hand, and that's if you're planning to upgrade to a solid-state drive (SSD). Unless you buy a kit that comes with an adapter, you'll need one so you can image (i.e. clone) your existing drive to the new SSD. Then you'll remove the old drive, install the new one, and presto, you're back in business. (Much faster business: SSDs rock.) Unless you have a pretty old desktop or laptop, you can skip buying a USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter and just go for USB-to-SATA. At the same time, I recommend one that supports USB 3.0. You may not need it now, but it's a good bet your next PC will have USB 3.0 ports -- and that'll make for much faster copying between drives. Trust me: When the time comes that you need to upgrade or replace a hard drive, you'll be glad to have a USB-to-SATA adapter on hand. By-The Xpert Crew @ http://techvedic.com

Throughout the year I try to share resources and information with you that I think will be helpful for you. Often times these resources will include links to free eBooks that we make available on a variety of topics. Today, I thought I would post a large collection of eBooks for you here so that you can find them in one place and consume them as you see fit. Also, if you find this list helpful, please share it with your peers and colleagues so that they too can benefit from these resources.

Recently I had someone ask me a question I wanted to share with you. They asked me why in the heck their IP address appeared to be coming from the other side of the country? Honestly, I can understand why this would freak someone out! Imagine not understanding what is going on as you do an IPChicken.com check only to see the IP looking odd. Then you run a speed test and learn you're suddenly based in another region of the country. I mean come on, that is just going to feel weird to the uninformed.

In this article I want to help kick start your own development on the App Store, and I hope it's encouraging for you that I myself went from having zero apps to having 20 approved and on sale in the space of just over a year and a half. I haven't made enough money from them to retire, but they do provide a regular income - and it's an income that's only going to grow as Apple sells more hardware.

I have spent a lot of time throughout the years researching and collecting facts and stimulus materials on the topic of Computer Viruses. Recently when I was watching my regular TED talk on my phone I watched this talk by Mikko Hypponen. I found it fascinating for the way in which he not only explores and shows some of the history of viruses but also talks of the social and ethical implications of the contemporary viruses being releases. He explores the use of viruses from a cyber-crime and organised-crime perspective.

"So I thought I would share a couple of habits that I find great when it comes to being a programmer and perhaps you will adopt a few yourself."

In the fall of 1977, I experimented with a newfangled PC, a Radio Shack TRS-80. For data storage it used-I kid you not-a cassette tape player. Tape had a long history with computing; I had used the IBM 2420 9-track tape system on IBM 360/370 mainframes to load software and to back-up data. Magnetic tape was common for storage in pre-personal computing days, but it had two main annoyances: it held tiny amounts of data, and it was slower than a slug on a cold spring morning. There had to be something better, for those of us excited about technology. And there was: the floppy disk.

Recently I saw somebody asked a question in a forum, the question is "Which programming language should I learn first?". Then someone answered this question. His answer:

In this Arduino tutorial I will demonstrate how to correctly connect the LM35 temperature sensor to the Arduino. I will also show you how to write the code necessary to obtain the temperature from the sensor.

"Let's say that you have children, and you would like to help them learn computer programming at a youngish age. As the father of four kids, I have tried to approach it from several different angles. What I would like to do here is collect some ideas for parents who are looking for different options."

As I've just finished the interviewing/hiring process at Facebook, I thought it would be helpful to share some of the insights I gained, particularly for our many portfolio companies who are searching for talent.

"The full-sized image is approximately 48 by 36 inches @ 150dpi, but the form factor will scale down to fit on US letter-sized paper. I hope you enjoy it. I, for one, will be plastering it all over my place of employment."

I've created a number of structured Scratch assignment writeups including one for the little tree program pictured below.  Since I haven't really found any such resources (links appreciated!), I figured I'd share: Scratch assignments

You win. I concede defeat. I no longer want to attempt developing an app for the Playbook

a recent tweet about when I took a picture and made a video of a slug I found in the backyard

I'm really starting to like what I see in Processing. I think this language will be suitable for the full range of students, from the beginners in ICS2O or ICS3x, to the robotics programmers in TEJ4M (via Arduino). Note that it can create standalone applets or applications, which is appealing to the students. 

Forms are usually seen as that obnoxious thing we have to markup and style. I respectfully disagree: forms (on a par with tables) are the most exciting thing we have to work with. Here we're going to take a look at how to style a beautiful HTML5 form using some advanced CSS and latest CSS3 techniques. I promise you will want to style your own forms after you've read this article.

In this post I will offer some guidance based on my own readings. The papers chosen herein are not intended to act as a C.S. hall of fame, but instead hope to accomplish the following: All papers are freely available online (i.e. not pay-walled) They are technical (at times highly so) They cover a wide-range of topics The form the basis of knowledge that every great programmer should know, and may already

Ever since I was told about a list of Movies for Computer Science Students and wrote some comments about that list I have been thinking book. Fiction books. Novels that tell stories that involve computer science and the sorts of issues of privacy, philosophy, ethics and social change that computers make in our society.