Lacie Cloudbox

The Lacie Cloudbox ($199.99 MSRP) is a network-attached hard drive that backs up your data seamlessly to the cloud. Sounds great, right? In principle, automatic backup of a user's most precious data without any intervention on that user's part sounds like a wonderful capability. The reality is that the Cloudbox is simply too expensive for the functionality it offers?especially given the software glitches and the problems I had getting it to communicate with Lacie's Cloud service.

Hardware
The Lacie Cloudbox is a tiny NAS?not much bigger than your typical Direct Attached Storage (DAS) drive. There's one Gigabit Ethernet port for connecting to a router and the power button?no USB ports or other expansion options. Storage capacity is 100GB which seems fairly limited considering how cheap storage in the terabyte range has become. The device is quiet and runs much cooler than other Lacie NASes I've tested, such as the Network Space 2.

Setup
Since Lacie touts the Cloudbox as "hassle-free," I had a tester with little networking or NAS experience set up the device, in addition to doing my own usual testing. We worked via a Windows 7 laptop connected wirelessly to the same network that the Cloudbox was connected to via an Ethernet cable. The unit ships with a Quick Install Guide which instructs users to run the Lacie Network Assistant, which initiates a configuration wizard.

The wizard is very straight-forward, my tester had no issues with the process at this point: set the interface's language (it can translate into several different languages) and the time zone, and that takes care of the first steps.Next, you are prompted to enter a contract number which is affixed to the product's documentation which is used to register your cloud account. Setting up the cloud account is where our testing started to run into problems?what should have been a very simple process turned painful. You create your account, and Lacie's cloud service verifies and registers it. The problem was that the Cloudbox seemed to take forever to register my tester's account, it was a good 30 minutes of just seeing the on-screen message "Registering your account" and nothing more (and that on a fairly speedy Internet connection). Fifteen minutes into the process, my tester received an email verification stating that the account had been successfully registered. Yet that registration was not reflected onscreen. My guinea pig was stymied. Kill the session? Wait? This is exactly the sort of puzzle that should never come up with any device, let alone a "hassle-free" one aimed at mainstream consumers.

This is where I had to intervene on behalf of my befuddled tester. I killed the session and started the wizard again. Instead of picking up where the setup left off, this time the?interface opened up to reveal the message "Retrieving backup information" which was odd because, as far as I knew, there was no data on the Cloudbox to be backed up at this point.? This message remained on screen for another 20 minutes without changing at all. At this point, I switched from a wireless to a wired connection, then disabled the laptop's firewall, and then, in a last act of desperation, switched from Internet Explorer to Chrome. After that, I was able to get past the "Retrieving backup" message and finally finished initial setup. Overall I would rate Cloudbox setup an absolute headache.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/k0nSOL-OdS0/0,2817,2400978,00.asp

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Broken coral embryos become clone army

Reef-building corals turn a turbulent upbringing into an advantage. Although currents break up fragile coral embryos, each fragment can develop into a normal adult.

On the Great Barrier Reef, most corals take part in mass spawning. A few nights after the November full moon, they simultaneously release sperm and eggs, which join in the open water. The resulting embryos drift for hours before settling onto rocks and developing into adult corals.

But the free-floating embryos are vulnerable because ? unlike most organisms ? they don't have a protective outer membrane, says Andrew Negri of the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland. Negri found that 45 per cent of Acropora millepora embryos break apart in gentle turbulence.

Although that sounds bad, Negri's studies suggest otherwise. Whether shattered into small clumps of cells, or even single cells, the embryo fragments survived and developed as normal. The resulting larvae were smaller than usual, but they successfully settled and transformed into corals.

Negri says the embryos of four coral families are known to fragment in a similar way, so the ability is probably a common feature of many corals. "Given that corals have existed for hundreds of millions of years, the lack of a protective embryonic membrane is probably no accident," he says.

Being able to make multiple offspring from a single fertilised egg would be a boon for corals, says Rachel Jones of the Zoological Society of London. Making eggs takes a lot of energy, and each has a vanishingly small chance of survival. "It's all about maximising numbers," she says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1216055

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ShopAndroid Daily Giveaway #20: Droid Bionic Tough Case, ThunderBolt Hard Shell Case & more!

Happy Friday, folks! Today's the last ShopAndroid.com Daily Giveaway for this week, which means it's your last chance to try and win one of these awesome Android accessories.  Today they include the Case-Mate Tough Case for Motorola Droid Bionic, Mobi Hard Shell Case for HTC ThunderBolt, Seidio SURFACE Extended Case for EVO 4G, and the Mobi Softshell TPU Case for Galaxy Nexus.

All you have to do is check out our hands-on videos with our featured Android accessories, and decide which one you like best.  Write your comment below and voilà! You're eligible to win your favorite item from today's daily giveaway.

Case-Mate Tough Case for Motorola Droid Bionic

Designed to offer two layers of protection for the Motorola Droid Bionic, the Case-Mate Tough Case is completely flexible and impact resistant.  The first layer is a flexible silicone case that wraps around the Droid Bionic leaving the screen, camera, headphone and charging ports exposed. Next comes the ABS plastic hard shell case which covers your device while in the silicone cover.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/iMXwadT1L8M/story01.htm

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Option announces new 4G chipset compatible with Windows 8

Belgian wireless outfit Option has produced a 4G modem that takes up the same space inside a netbook or tablet as the company's previous 3G-enabled model. The GTM801 is based around Qualcomm's universal-standard Gobi MDM9215 and, even better, is already designed to support Windows 8 -- so we can at least hope that the first or second wave of tablets for Microsoft's new OS will be able to access 4G natively, for when we need to work Facebook on the go. Given that all of Option's tech is Gobi-based, you'll also have backwards compatibility with pretty much every standard ever invented, which is good if you don't live in the middle of a LTE zone.

Continue reading Option announces new 4G chipset compatible with Windows 8

Option announces new 4G chipset compatible with Windows 8 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/02/option-announces-new-4g-chipset-compatible-with-windows-8/

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Why Asian carp are such a threat

Five states failed to secure an injunction that would close shipping locks in an attempt to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. What's so bad about Asian carp??

The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the Great Lakes states' appeal to close shipping locks to stymie the on-going incursion of Asian carp.

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Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are suing the Army Corps of Engineers to provide greater protection to prevent the fish from entering the Great Lakes. While this suit continued, the five states? sought an injunction to have the Corps close locks on waterways that connect the Mississippi River with Lake Michigan.

The federal government said that the efforts proposed by these states would detract from the long-term strategy of the Corps. This is the third time such an appeal has been rejected.

The EPA currently classifies the Asian Carp as an invasive species. The Corps and the concerned states agree that the carp are a serious threat to the ecology of the Great Lakes area, as well as its $7-billion sport-fishing market. The disagreement pivots around whether the current schemes in place are enough.

In 2002, The Army Corps of Engineers installed an electric-current barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the only navigable link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River drainage basins. The Great Lake states, evidently unsatisfied, have proposed that this link be permanently destroyed.?

More recently, in early 2009, when the electric barriers were deactivated for maintenance, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources dumped 2,200 gallons of rotenone ? a toxin to fish that is said to be harmless to humans ? into the canal. The $3 million action produced 90 tons of dead fish, among which only one Asian carp was found.

Given the extreme measures being taken, you might wonder what it is about these carp that makes them so terrifying?

First, let's define the fish in question. 'Asian carp' is a catchall for four distinct species: the Bighead, Silver, Grass, and Black carp. Though their names might signify otherwise, these species do closely resemble each other, tending to have the same lurid tarnished-silver scales. The four species vary in size, but are large compared to native American freshwater fish. They can weigh anywhere from 60 to 110 pounds, and range from 40 to 60 inches in length. All four are known to inhabit the Mississippi River Basin, which eventually connects to the Great Lakes.

In the Mississippi and other American waterways, Asian carp "have left a trail of tremendous destruction," says Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service, Minneapolis. Wooley says the carp's previous activity in other environments demonstrates its ability to "literally take over an ecosystem."?

Wooley told the Monitor of the carp's two major threats. The first is a food problem. Asian carp don't eat other fish, but because of their voracious appetites (consuming up to a third of their body weight per day) they could easily out-compete native fish that rely on specific sources of food. Each type of carp prefers a different food ? varying from grass to plankton to snails and mussels ?making their attack on the ecosystem somewhat multi-pronged. Moreover, these sources lie at the bottom of Great Lakes' food chain. Changes at the foundation tend to reverberate through the entire ecosystem.

Then there's the Asian carp's fecundity. Female Bighead carp, for example, can carry up to 1 million eggs in a lifetime, much more than most native fish. They also reproduce rapidly, says Wooley. Once introduced, the Asian carp is difficult to stop.

If the Asian carp does take hold in the Great Lakes, the ecosystem will no doubt do what ecosystems do best: adapt. After all the term "invasive species" is, by definition, relative, often marking a transitional phase as a species establishes itself in a new ecosystem. For instance, most earthworms in the United States are descended from those transported overseas by humans. But today, earthworms are widely regarded as ecologically essential.

Whether the economy adapts to the Asian carp, however, remains to be seen. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/54OfxJF692g/Why-Asian-carp-are-such-a-threat

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'Survivor's' Zohn gets a stem-cell transplant

By Josh Grossberg, E! Online

Forget feeling like a million bucks. Ethan Zohn is feeling like a new man.

The "Survivor: Africa" champ underwent a stem-cell transplant Wednesday to treat a recurrence of his Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer--and he has his brother to thank for the immuno-boost.

Outwit, outlast, outplay has never quite meant so much.

More from E: Ethan Zohn and Jenna Morasca dye their hair pink to raise awareness for World Cancer Day

"Today I leap into a healthy new body. Today is the start of the rest of my life. Thank You to my bro Lee &all who have supported me. Love!" the reality star tweeted presumably before undergoing the transfusion.

And of course, Jenna Morasca, Zohn's girlfriend and winner of "Survivor: The Amazon," was right there with him the whole time.

"Thanks @JennaMorasca for being by my side. Love you," he added in a follow up.

Just before the transplant, Morasca wrote on Twitter: "Today @EthanZohn gets new stem cells &new cancer free life FOREVER! And we get our lives back. Send positive healing vibes #getbetterethan"

More from E: 'Survivor' Ethan Zohn's cancer returns

During the operation, Zohn's gal-pal kept her nerves calm and distracted herself by drawing a little self-portrait which she subsequently posted as a twitpic.

After it was over, Morasca was all smiles.

"Very happy girl right now :)))))," she tweeted.

Getting a new lease on life hasn't been easy for the former Boran tribesman, though change is (see he and Morasca's recent cut and dye job in honor of World Cancer Day).

In May 2009, Zohn first learned he had a rare form of the disease called CD20-positive Hodgkin's lymphoma, after doctors found a swollen lymph node and a mass on the left side of his chest. After undergoing intensive rounds of chemotherapy, the 38-year-old professional soccer player's cancer appeared to be in remission until Nov. 2011 when new cancer cells were detected, localized this time in his lung.

More from E: Take that, cancer! Ethan Zohn completes New York City marathon

In an interview with People, Morasca said that despite the setback, her beau has every intention of whipping this latest challenge, just as the Survivor stud did when he successfully ran last November's New York City marathon.

"Ethan asked the doctor what was the record time for getting out of here, so he wants to beat that," she told the magazine. "His doctor said there was no prize, and Ethan said, 'Yes, there is. You're going to tell the other patients that I made it out in three weeks.' "

She added that Zohn also received the transplant at the same ward where he was first diagnosed with Hodgkin's, something that's been tough for the pair.

More from E: Ethan Zohn says Kardashians are helping cure cancer?

"No one wants to come back here. Even though the nurses and doctors are wonderful, this is one place where you really don't want to see anybody ever again," said Morasca. "Then, starting the chemo and being attached to a pump that you're going to be attached to for the next three to five weeks made it very real."

The procedure will hopefully provide Ethan with the lifelong protection he needs to prevent the cancer's return. Zohn, with Morasca at his side, is expected to remain in the hospital until he gets the OK from doctors that his body has accepted the new healthy stem cells.

We wish him a speedy recovery.

E gallery: Celeb cancer survivors

Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/29/10544366-survivors-ethan-zohn-gets-a-stem-cell-transplant

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Dating for Boomers

Now that the ?stigma? of meeting or having met your significant other online is dying off and people are taking it as what it is or a legitimate avenue for meeting someone new, While it can seem much easier to meet someone in your teens or 20?s, the truth is that may have been true in the past but today thanks to the boon which the internet has brought,

?

Dating after divorce for women can be a challenging ordeal, particularly if you?re already past your forties. You may feel that you no longer have what it takes to compete with other younger and sexier women out there. You do love older women, don?t you? I think they are gorgeous. It?s a good thing that more and more relationships today are formed between younger men and older women.

?

If you are a member of the Over 50s Singles group, you might think your dating days are behind you.

However, the fun might be just about to begin.One of the fastest growing ways that dating has increased for those over 50 is through online dating services. These services often do a preliminary matching for the clients which helps get them on their way.

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The internet has opened up a completely new world of possibilities for seniors searching for friendship, romance, and true love.There are lots of dates that would be fun for any baby boomer. What, you think you?re OLD? Well, that?s all the more reason to get out and enjoy a date! Maybe it?ll make you feel young again.

?

It is normal for women dating over fifty to feel scared and hesitant with the idea of meeting new men again. Women writing a dating profile often get anxious and confused about what things they should include and what they should leave unsaid.

?

Remember the bad old days where you had to hang out at a bar to find a woman, or worse still, wait until a friend of yours felt sorry enough for you to set you up with one of their women friends hoping that the two of you would hit it off.

?

So, you?re over fifty, you?re ready to date again, and you?re living on a fixed income.

Or maybe you?d just like to know about some dates that aren?t very expensive. Well here?s a list to get you started:There are a few things to keep in mind when entering the world of online dating at any age.

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Age is nothing but a number, and that certainly applies to dating. Do you feel that dating is too ?young? of an activity for you?A good portion of the population consists of people over 50. A large number of them are not married, active, and healthy.

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Read abo ut design competition and also read about natural beauty products and experiential marketing

Source: http://www.a1article.net/arts-and-entertainment/dating-for-boomers-5957.html

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