2010 Walmart Cyber Monday TV Sales Ad Released in Early November - Vizio, Samsung and Philips HDTVs

Over the last several years it has been the case that more and more Americas are looking to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and deals. By doing research many customers are finding that they can get a HDTV at a very low price by simply being patient and waiting for these very popular TVs to go on sale. WalMart is the largest retailer in the world and they often offer great discounts when it comes to TVs on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Before making any assumptions on what TVs will be in the ad paper it would be a good idea to look at past sales and see which companies were included.

WalMart has relationships with many television companies but the deals and sales that are offered on Cyber Monday tend to be quite consistent. When WalMart is buys these TVs in bulk it is usually done months beforehand and the lower prices are set even before the summer. With this being the case many customers will be able to gauge what types of TV sets will be on sale by simple seeing which parts of the shelves at WalMart of the most full.

Many WalMart locations make sure to keep the overstock TVs in the back but you will likely see many stacks of merchandise start to come out at most major retailers. By simply looking towards the ceiling of WalMart, Best Buy or Target over the next few weeks you will find many of the Christmas items that are sure to be on sale during the big sale events of the year which often take place on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday makes things a little bit easier as customers will not have to deal with the crowds like they will on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

As Christmas gift ideas are very popular during the next few months it will be the case that many people start to think about buying a TV for the man in their life. Saving some extra money on this TV purchase could help quite a bit when it comes to paying the bills during the holiday season. With WalMart often offering great discounts it might be the cheapest place to find a HDTV from Vizio, Samsung or Philips during the 2010 holiday shopping season. It would also be a smart decision to check out the sales and deals from Target, Best Buy and HH Gregg.

Good and Bad Effects of Technology to Our Lives - Is There a Way to Change It?

Many of us are always thankful for our daily usage of today's modern technology. Every day, we get to perform our daily tasks easier because we have the helpful materials and gadgets that keep us at ease. Life will never be as easy as we look at it now without the advancement of technology. Think of how ancient people back then struggle just to create fire. Now, we can make one with just a click. Recall how transportation was done back then and see how much it has improved now. We are all living a better and more comfortable life because of our technology.

Even though we go on with our daily lives with such comfort and ease, there are things that we sacrifice for it. Because of the on-going technological demands, we have continuously taken for granted the effects it will cost us, and now we slowly notice them coming. Just for instance, the machines that we are using are not all there is. We use them very effectively, but are slowly destroying our planet because of them. Machines uses up a lot of heat energy. We use fuel to accommodate this need. It will then dispose wastes that are turned into smoke. It pollutes our air giving us unhealthy environment to breathe in. Mountainous areas have been turned into industrialized sites. Now even rain forests are being endangered. Trees are being logged to be made into furniture, and for constructions. We now have bare mountains.

There are submarines, ships of the largest, best ones. They all add up polluting our ocean. The cars and land vehicles we are using as well. They help us go from place to place easier and faster, but the polluted air it creates is devastating.

We have developed the use of plastics because it will cost easier production so that one can create more in just a fraction of time. They are disposables so that we can buy them cheaper. But when we throw these, they add up to the mountains of wastes being dumped onto a waste disposal area each day. Just imagine how much garbage s single person can collect in just one day, and multiply that to billions of people. Waste disposal has been one of the biggest problems of our society today. We have built so many things that we end up throwing after just one usage.

Maybe there are reasons for us to be grateful having all these modern equipments, and they are sure to help us in many ways. But the fact that we are all destroying our environment. It can have really good effects on us, but it also creates a devastating effect to our environment that destroys our health and living.

What Are Internet Ready TV's and What Brands Carry Them

The market of these television sets with web facility is estimated to grow by 14% in the U.S in the year 2012. One requires no additional investment on wiring or hardware after purchasing an internet ready TV.

What is an internet ready TV? The answer is pretty simple. Many manufacturing companies join hands with the famous web outlets and provide rich internet content for their customers. This content is limited to few websites only; one cannot browse any website he/she wants to. There is no need to connect your PC to the television set. Usually all the widely day-to-day used websites have partnered with the well known television manufacturing brands.

Some of the TV brands which are into this internet ready TV business are Sony Bravia, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Panasonic and many more. Samsung internet ready TV's are providing Yahoo and Flicker while you have Sony Bravia offering you to browse You Tube website along with Amazon- video on Demand. Companies keep on trying to join a partnership with various websites to increase the internet content and thus get more customers.We also have Netflix and Blockbuster who are offering movies over the internet, and many TV Manufacturers are integrating there software in the new model TV's. Along with the usual TV watching experience one can enjoy net surfing without any hassle. You are just a click away from viewing the list of contents of internet browsing on your television screen. This new trend has succeeded and is going to bring a new era to the world of television viewing and internet browsing.

How IP-based Video Surveillance Works -- Way Beyond Analog

When you're shopping around for an IP-based video surveillance system, you will need to be particularly cautious about what exactly you're looking at and what the individual terms mean. How IP-based video surveillance works is open to interpretation as far as some video surveillance and security salespeople are concerned -- not because they are trying to confuse the issues, but because there is no genuine consensus on what the term "IP-based" or related ones such as "networked" or "web-based" means.

Originally video surveillance was done based on analog technology -- closed
circuit television (CCTV) and recording on video tapes. This was fine for
recording what was going on, but it didn't broadcast actual live information, so
it wasn't practical for monitoring stores, for instance, from a remote location.
It simply provided what happened after the fact. The picture quality wasn't
great and it relied on human reliability as well -- someone had to remember to
change the tapes regularly, etc.

Digital revolutionizes video surveillance

With the Internet revolution and the ever-increasing presence of Local Area
Networks, technology took great strides in video surveillance in the 1990's.
Analog camera tubes were replaced with CCD (Charged Coupled Devices) and digital
cameras became affordable for most people.

This combination meant that video surveillance could do two things: go live
over the Internet or a closed network for surveillance and provide clearer,
crisper images that could be tracked and manipulated easily. For law
enforcement, digital surveillance meant it was much easier to zoom in on images,
track particular scenes and enhance features.

The basics of IP-based surveillance

A digital camera "views" the scene in front of it, broadcasts the video
images as a digitized signal over a LAN line (Local Area Network) where it's
then transmitted to a computer or server. The server in turn manages all of this
information. Depending upon the software used to manage the digital images, it
can record, display or retransmit the images to anywhere in the world.

The software package can easily be upgraded to allow for analyzing data,
selecting specific "flagged" items to watch for and a host of other functions,
making it a truly customizable security tool.

True IP-based digital surveillance uses CCD cameras that use signal
processing that send packetized video streams over the LAN through a Cat 5 cable
rather than a coax cable network, utilizing greater bandwidth and standard
TCP/IP communication.

It also provides more intelligent data mining and information retrieval. If
security is an issue, full digital surveillance also offers the added advantage
of data encryption opportunities to protect against image tampering -- something
not possible with analog recording.

Recently, a few companies such as D-Link and Linksys have also developed fully
digital cameras that actually have completely integrated, built-in web servers
so that no external computers are needed for operating them. The signal is
transmitted directly to the terminal location for storage or play-back.

Halfway there...

The "middle of the road" of video surveillance is upgrading video
surveillance by utilizing a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). A DVR system is not
really fully IP-based, but is step toward the more advanced IP technology. In
actuality, a DVR system uses the same camera and structures for cabling as the
older CCTV analog systems, but the old VCRs have been replaced with DVR for
storage of the data. The data is converted to digital so that it can be stored
on hard disks, but the quality of the images captured remains analog since this
is how it originated.

When shopping for a system, be sure to ask if the system is digital based on
the recording (DVR) or on the camera, since many manufacturers consider a system
digital by virtue of the DVR storage system even if the camera recording the
images is still analog.

Going all the way

Some people will move to the hybrid models of a CCTV/DVR system when they
first move beyond an analog system because it seems like the next practical
evolutionary step in video surveillance. However, shifting to this method
largely ignores how IP-based video surveillance works.

With CCTV/DVR surveillance you have actually simply delayed the inevitable by
adding on a relatively new technology (hard disk, digital storage) to an old
technology (analog video over coaxial transmission lines). Rather than moving
forward into something new, you have prolonged the demise of the old.

Advantages of IP-based video surveillance

The leap into completely IP-based technology is the best bang for your buck
both monetarily and in terms of security by far. Digital surveillance can be
done over a LAN network, of course, but TCP/IP transmittal of surveillance makes
sense for remote monitoring of multiple locations and for remote recording of
data onto back-up servers and hard disks for long-term storage.

With IP-based video surveillance, you can connect your surveillance camera or
cameras to any network or wireless adapter, and you are extremely flexible in
your placement of the camera itself. A typical PC-attached video camera, while
providing digital picture image quality, still has to be within approximately
ten feet of the computer itself.

Set-up of an IP-based video system is easy -- once you've set up an IP
address, you're up and running and it's extremely stable and reliable. Because
this is the technology of the future, it is also upgradeable. You won't be
outgrowing an IP-based video surveillance system any time soon because new
developments are based on improving this market. Therefore, you will be able to
add on and improve this system for years to come while older, CCTV+DVR hybrids
will dead-end and become obsolete.

Comparing analog and IP-based video surveillance

A better way to understand the differences between analog and IP-based video
surveillance may be to compare the two and how they work:

Analog or CCTV+DVR video surveillance

o Easy to use -- operates like a VCR

o Changing cassettes and rewinding regularly means human error frequently interferes with effectiveness

o Image quality is poor

o Storage tapes wear out over time

o Broadcasting images live isn't practical

o Storage is bulky

o Uses analog recording, recording in low-grade picture quality and inability to search and track easily

o Adding DVR systems must be done in 'blocks' of 16 channels

IP-based video surveillance

o IP-based recording means instant transmittal of images anywhere in the world

o Can monitor multiple cameras from one remote location

o No decrease in recording quality over time or with repeated replays

o Digital picture quality far superior to analog

o IP-base recording is highly compressed for easier storage and can be transported over a variety of media

o Digital images can be encrypted for security purposes

o Updates and add-ons are relatively inexpensive through software packages and Internet computer networking

o Adjustable frame rates

o Remote or shared viewing may be done over the Internet or a wireless connection

o Standard IP video compression techniques are used

o IP surveillance cameras may be added individually or in groups according to your needs

If you are contemplating increased or upgrading video surveillance for your
company or home, understanding how IP-based video surveillance works will make
your decision easier. It is the future of video surveillance and, although in
the short term may be a bit more expensive, is obviously an investment in
superior quality and flexibility.

This article on "How IP-based Video Surveillance Works" reprinted with
permission.

Copyright © 2004-2005 Evaluseek Publishing.

Testing a Transformer - How To Accurately Test A Transformer

There is two types of transformers in the market- linear transformer and switch mode power transformer. The transformers design is different. Sometimes it is just referred as ac transformer. Linear transformer mostly used in radio, project kits, VCD and etc while switch mode transformer can be found in Monitor, Tv, Fax and so on.

A transformer consists of two or more coils wound on the same core. For power transformers, the core material is usually iron. For a radio-frequency transformer, the core material is usually ferrite or air. The basic property of a transformer is to change AC voltage. A transformer cannot change direct current voltage. A step down transformer has a lower AC output voltage at its secondary winding than the AC input voltage to its primary winding. Conversely, a step up transformer has a higher secondary than primary voltage. The transformer laminations or coating of shellac, enamel or varnish is to insulate adjacent turns from shorts between winding. I will not go too details about how transformer work and transformer calculation as you can read more details from most electrical and electronic transformers books.

How to test transformers: Transformer failures are relatively rare in most electronic equipment, compared with other components. If too much current goes through a coil or winding, the winding heats up and can either open up completely, or the insulation between turns of wire can break down, causing the coil to be partly or completely shorted.

Just like a coil, you can check continuity of any primary or secondary transformer winding. The actual value of DC resistance you read is rather meaningless, but at least you will know whether a winding is open. Checking linear transformer is quite straight forward. Apply the ac voltage to the primary winding and expect output voltage at the secondary side. No or low output voltage means the transformer winding has open or shorted winding. Look for any evidence of overheating, such as darkened or blackened areas or a burnt smell.

About how to test a power transformer-it is a little bit complicated. You cannot apply ac voltage to the equipment and expect the desire output at the secondary side without connect to load otherwise over voltage will happen (because you have removed all the secondary load) and will blow the power section which consist of power fet, pwm ic and etc. Switch mode power supply are designed to run with load while linear transformer can be test without load.

The best way to test a switch mode power transformer is first remove it from the board. Check only the primary winding as secondary winding failures are exceedingly rare. How do we know which one is the primary winding? Trace from the big filter cap the positive pin to see where the circuit goes. It will go to one of the pin of the transformer. Then look for the power fet middle pin which is the Drain and it will lead to another pin of the transformer. This two pins is the primary winding of the transformer. Checking the resistance of the primary winding only can reveal whether it is open but it cannot check if it has developed a shorted winding. Only by using a ringer test you will know if it shorted or not. A shorted turn in the primary winding can cause the power section to blow.

The cheapest ringer tester that i came across is Dick Smith LOPT METER or flyback tester. Just connect the probes to the primary winding and the result are instantly seen from the Led bar graph. 4-8 bar represent a good winding, 1-2 bar represent partial short and if the led goes off means there is a heavy short in the winding. Besides checking the transformer it can be use to check B+ COIL, horizontal yoke coil and flyback primary winding and ballast (choke).

The expensive ringer tester is from sencore equipment. Sencore LC102 and LC103C besides checking capacitor it also have the capability to check all kind of winding. Whether it is a low voltage transformer, high voltage transformer, current transformer, pulse transformer, electric transformer, custom transformer this equipment will be able to check and test it.

If you do not wish to invest on this tester you may use a light bulb to check it. Remove one of the primary winding pin and connect a 60 watt light bulb. One end to the circuit while the other to the transformer pin. If the bulb light and didn't goes off suspect a shorted winding and if the light goes off, the winding is ok.

Transformer repair is not easy and it require a good skill to do it. Most of the transformer repairer preferred to rewind bigger winding such as fan, car alternator and starter. Switch mode power transformer is a little bit difficult to rewind because of the small size and low price.

How to choose the best Flat screen TV

Choosing the right technology

Plasma and lcd tvs look the same, but they are not. Some features or options don't differ a lot, but these are the major differences:

Size

If you arfe looking for an extra large TV, go for a plasma. Plasma TVs are the current size champions, particularly when comparing TVs that consumers can easily purchase. LCDs are catching up in size with their developing technology, however, and may surpass Plasmas in the near future. This may be due to difficulties in producing glass large enough for larger plasmas.

Burn-ins

With the latest plasma technology, this is less of an issue than ever before. The Pixel Orbitor, for example, is a method of reducing burn-in used by plasma manufacturers. It requires no additional programing from the end user as some older burn-in prevention techniques did.
Note: If you plan to use a plasma for gaming, some games with permanent 'dashboards' may still cause some burn-in. If you will be using the television for display use only, go for an LCD. Plasmas are more likely to get burned-in pixels.

Miscellaneous

- lcd tvs are far less fragile than plasmas. This is also an advantage when the tv set has to be shipped or moved to a different location.

- LCD TVs are also much easier to install than plasma TVs.

- LCD TVs have a better performance at high altitudes.

- LCD TVs are often cheaper than plasma TVs. The difference in pricing is getting smaller, however.

Ofcourse, all this information is available all over the web. For a detailed comparison sheet, I recommend using Wikipedia's comparison sheet.

Flat Screen TV comparison, don't get it wrong

If you have made a choice between plasma and LCD (I'll name it Flat screen TV from now on), you can pick a TV of your choice. Flat screen TV comparison will able you to find out exactly what you want and what'll fit the budget.

Brands

The following brands are being considered as the best manufacturers of Flat screen TVs:

- Hitachi

- Panasonic

- Philips

- Pioneer

- Samsung

If you are looking for a product with outstanding quality, we recommend choosing one of these brands.

Features

Different Flat screen TVs have different features. Most of these features look the same, but there are a couple of unique features as well:

- Ambilight

- HD ready or not?

- Picture in Picture

There are lots of comparison website available, but you will have to know how to use them. Filter the models by brand, price and features and the choice will be a lot easier.