Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

There’s room for relaxation and for business in the amazing city of Dubai, UAE.  Hotel accommodation here is a glorious tribute to comfort and luxury.  Your stay will be a pleasure, thanks to the extremely knowledgeable and well-trained staff, who are keen on anticipating and tending to your every need.  This will certainly help to place a splendid center to your travels in the city.  Dubai city has many things to offer every guest.  There are shopping centers and festivals, and there are also some cutting-edge galleries that are worth exploring.

If you are looking for the newest of the new in visual arts, then be sure to allow time to see the Dubai Digital Arts Center.  Some of the more interesting new developments in digital culture are presented here, along with performances.  It is important to see digital arts grow as a force in the art world, because its ties to technology and cultural expression are very strong.  Dubai, a city that is growing and changing in constant and fascinating directions, is often on the forefront of global culture, and is a remarkable place to witness the shifts in creative thought that are currently at work, and will no doubt affect how the world expresses itself to itself in the years to come.

There are some interesting alliances too, that could only be forged in an artistic marketplace.  Digital artists working in their respective fields often have an advantage over other artists, because international access is always already available.  Works can be discussed, and even disseminated, across the world wide web.  There are more forms of digital art that web design, there is photography and graphic art, there is also electronically created painting, digital manipulations of existing art works, and endless possibilities for using digital manipulations, like sound and video, in live performance, among many other possibilities for the form.  Artists in these disciplines can also find linkages to other artists, because of the already existing access to global digital culture.  So it is not surprising, but always welcome, to see links between digital institutions and practitioners.  N3krozoft’s performance of Kasparov9000 was one of these welcome linkages, when artists from Russia and the U.S. joined artistic sensibilities to present a performance here about Kasparov and the computer Deep Blue, using electronic media to make a performance that was a fascinating blend of the digital and the live.  This is a precedent that speaks well of the global community and the next generation of artists and scientists.

I love Horror Films, no matter how many I have seen, probably over two hundred, I still jump with surprise and grab whom ever is sitting next to me in the movie theatre. One time, while staying at a New York Airport Hotel because of flight delays at La Guardia due to bad weather, I ordered up my favorite and classic Horror Film, ‘Wait Until Dark‘, starring Audrey Hepburn. I remember the first time I watched it in a movie theatre chain called the Rialto which circulates old movies and foreign films, I was 12 or 13 years old. I went with my best friend Chris. At first, we didn’t really know why we were there seeing a film that was made in 1967, except for the reason that Chris overheard this guy she has a crush on talk about it to his friends, saying how scary it was.

The film surrounds a blind Audrey Hepburn and her diamond thief of a husband, played by Efram Zimbalist, Jr. and a couple of thieves played by Richard Crenna and Alan Arkin trying to make friends with her, while her husband is away, so they can search her apartment for the diamonds her husband stole. As the movie was unfolding, Chris and I looked at each other wondering where the scary parts are and the horror. Then near the end is where the movie turns interesting, but still not scary, when all of a sudden something totally unexpected happens, I won’t reveal it here, in case you haven’t seen the film, but something totally unexpected happened and my friend Chris jumped straight out of her chair and screamed. It totally scared her so much, I had to yank her back down into her seat. That moment in the film scared the crap out of me too, but my friend Chris’s reaction was priceless. I was laughing so hard after that I almost wet my pants.

Ever since the thrill and amusement I got from watch ‘Wait Until Dark’ I’ve been in search to find that perfect scare. That absolute truly unexpected ‘boo’ that will have the same effect on me as it did on my friend Chris.

As data backup and loss stories of complete horror continue to unfold, Carbonite continues leading the way with secure, online data protection
that will only cost you mere pennies a day, compared to losing irreplaceable files containing invaluable data.

Ireland’s Paul Barry, an IT specialist, had a data backup nightmare tale. It went something like this:

Like a lot of people, Paul’s professional career started out in technical support. In his case, he was part of a help-desk team for a large professional practice. Among other things, they were responsible for performing PC LAN backups for a number of systems used by other departments. For one especially important system, they acquired fancy new tape-backup equipment and a large collection of tapes. A procedure was put in place, and before-you-go-home-at-night backups became a standard. Some months later, a crash brought down the system, and all the data was lost. Shortly thereafter, a call came in for the latest backup tape. It was located and dispatched, and a recovery was attempted. The recovery failed, however, as the tape was blank. A call came in for the next-to-last backup tape. Nervously, it was located and dispatched, and a recovery was attempted. It also failed because this tape also was blank. Amid long silences and pink-slip glares, panic started to set in as the tape from three nights prior was called up. This attempt resulted in a lot of shouting.

All the tapes were then checked, and they were all blank. To add insult to injury, the problem wasn’t only that the tapes were blank–they weren’t even formatted! The fancy new backup equipment wasn’t smart enough to realize the tapes were not formatted, so it allowed them to be used. (Note: writing good data to an unformatted tape is never a good idea.)

And that’s Paul’s horror story — or, one of them, rather. If you have any of your own, please contact Carbonite, and they can get you set up with data protection that offers a 15 Petabyte, storage capacity, providing internet and computer users an indispensable service, at the bargain rate of only pennies a day. They also offer a 15-day free trial, which will give you a nice introduction to their services.

Once a relatively small Carbonite data backup program is set up on your computer, it requires little ongoing work on behalf of the user. It reads and stores your data as long as you’re online, and users can also log on to the Carbonite site and access their files whenever they want.

All you need is love. And Carbonite.