Factors to consider when buying a Pc or Laptop for college

Factors To Consider When Buying A Laptop

When buying a Pc or Laptop for college, there are many factors a student needs to take into account before purchasing. A factor that a student must consider is that a laptop is much easier to bring to college in comparison to a Pc as its portable. Size is a huge factor. The student should consider a screen about 14.1"-15.4", which is a suitable size for college and travelling around with.

When buying a laptop, the student must not be fooled by the look of the laptop. Just because its "cute and pink" does not mean its any good.

Consider the amount of RAM or memory the laptop holds. If you are a multi-tasker get as much RAM as you can. A student in college would want at least 4GB, this would have enough for a students basic work. The student would need to consider what use they would need from their laptop for their course. For instance, in Applied Psychology we use Photoshop which needs a lot of memory. 

The student must also consider the hard drive space. All files on the laptop take space from the hard drive. For basic use, anything around 120GB will be fine. If the person would need more space for photos and videos than look for 300-500GB.

When buying a laptop, the student must be aware that it only comes with trial software. Microsoft Word is a must for a student and they must be bought separately. It is important that the student buying a laptop factors these costs in the overall budget.

The student should also consider the Processor (CPU). The better it is, the faster the laptop will be. The student needs to consider if AMD v. Intel is important to them. Intel processors tend to be energy efficient while AMD are cheaper.

Another factor the student should consider is the typing and mousing. As notebooks are small, it is understandable that the keyboard is small too. Try simple keyboard exercises to see if its suitable. For the mouse there is normally a touch pad or a pointing stick, see which is more preferred.

Another important factor would be the graphics card. This would be needed by students who would be editing videos etc. If this is a part of the course, the person would need an ATI graphics card.

Another factor worth considering is the student should not buy a second hand laptop as you don't know how much longer it will last for, and if it were to break the person could easily spend more money on repairs than what the laptops worth.

Apart from the hardware specifications, it is important to consider the battery life. If you wish to avoid bringing the charger to college, the student should consider batteries that hold at least 3 hour charge. There are plugs around the classes, but it can not be guaranteed that you get a plug. Also, the library is always full, therefore the computers are always full. It is handy to bring your own laptop instead of waiting till somebody leaves.

Mobile Phones and Health Risks

Mobile Phones and Health Risks

The number of mobile phone users are constantly increasing. Almost everybody has a mobile phone in this day and age. Do you know anybody who does not own a mobile phone? Since the use of mobile phones are so widespread, health issues have become a concern for researchers. Most mobile phone users do not pay particular attention to such concerns as the evidence is not so clear. We don't generally think that our mobile phones are a hazard to us, but are they? With mobile phones belonging to millions of people, its understandable that users want to have a full understanding of the long term impact on the human body.

In one article, researchers were concerned with RF radiation. Researchers have said that mobile phones communicate using RF radiation. At a high level of radiation, it has a thermal effect as it can raise a persons body temperature. In mobile phones there are a low level of RF radiation which is argued could cause problems as big as tumours.

In one research study, researchers studied the signal from mobile phones. The researchers found it hard to find health-concerning issues where signals are transmitted. At that time, researchers could not find scientific evidence on cancer occurring over the use of mobile phones. From this research, would you think that we are safe from health issues? Researchers believe that further research would be a waste of time as they would get the same results. Its not 100% certain that there are no risks but the uncertainty is low.

Would you think the reason a phone is so warm is from a high amount of usage? Would you think it was connected to radiation? -No, its not. This heat is from the battery alone. RF radiation has nothing to do with the heat coming from the phone. Radiation does not have any heat effect related.

In another article relating to health risks, a research that I found interesting and debatable was that using a mobile phone and any other electronic gadget for just 2 hours before bed could cause sleeping pattern problems. It is said that it causes "Melatonin Suppression". Melatonin is said to be a chemical that controls our body clock. Researchers believed that using a mobile phone before bed causes people to take longer to reach deeper sleep stages and also more difficult to stay in them. Researchers wanted to recommend dimming the lights on phones and other technology to reduce disturbed sleeping patterns.  

        From reading through the research made about the health concerns from mobile phones I think it would do very little to comfort those who are worried about radiation and the impact of it on a person as the research is uncertain and they believe that no evidence was found. 

In my response to the research, not many people would consider the hidden dangers of mobile phone radiation. For those who are worried about the effects it could cause, people could be either relieved that researchers struggled to find evidence of it causing health problems or people could be even more worried as researchers don't know if health is at risk or not. From the research of mobile phones causing bad sleeping patterns I'm not sure I can believe it. In my own experience I could easily fall asleep texting or watching television and sleep just fine but I can take a while to fall asleep some nights. I don't know if that could be related. Unless this study was in relation to people who would not regularly use much technology and when they did use it before bed, they struggled to sleep. That is just my guess on the study. Would you believe this research?

Another question to ask yourself, could you live without your mobile phone? I personally don't think I could. If I had no choice, I could learn to live without it, but with the choice I would keep it in my life with or without health concerns.


Reference:

 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250402.php.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2194806/Using-mobile-phones-tablets-bed-affecting-sleep-warn-scientists.html.

Useful links

Below are some useful links that I thought could be useful in our course for Psychology students.

http://psd.tutsplus.com

This website is used for photoshop tutorials. It can help you improve on using photoshop effectively and using the different tools correctly. The website has a wide range of articles, tips, effects and techniques. 

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

This website is useful for visual illusions in Perception as it explains the scientific value of the visual illusions. It shows all the 5 different categories, and a huge number of different illusions.

http://www.netaddiction.com/index.php?option=com_bfquiz&view=onepage&catid=46&Itemid=106

This website is a "internet addiction test" where you see how addicted to the internet you are. Its useful to see as you may not recognise spending so much time on the internet, so its interesting to see the results.

http://www.amsciepub.com

This is a journal website for psychology courses. These can come in to great use while doing CA's. 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat".

Im really starting to like Oliver Sacks, he describes case histories of some of his patients. I like to read about his patients as there so interesting and unique. This title of "the man who mistook his wife for a hat" came from the case study of a man with visual Agnosia.

Dr. P is a music teacher who is referred to Oliver Sacks. Sacks notices that P faces him with his ears and not his eyes. He focuses on the doctors features one at a time. In this interview, his wife is present. P grasps his wife's head and tried to lift it off and put on his own head. His wife gave no sign that anything odd had happened. P functions by making little songs about what he is doing. If the song is interrupted then he stops until he finds a sensorium clue on how to proceed.

P is unaware that he has a problem with visual images. He could not recognise things around him, even his own face, wife, and family. He would recognise people by voice. He could pick out a key feature that he could identify the face. For example he was shown a portrait of his family. He didn't recognise any of them. He could think of one or two people. He recognised his brother Paul, square jaw, big teeth. Did he make a guess that it was Paul by the features?