The JEHM Net News

Hewlett-Packard Co. researchers have developed a memory chip with wireless networking capabilities that is roughly the same size as a grain of rice, the company said Monday.

Prototypes of the Memory Spot chip developed by HP Labs contain 256K bits to 4M bits of memory and can transfer data wirelessly at speeds up to 10M bits per second (bps). There are eight bits in a byte. This amount of storage allows the chips to hold a short video clip, digital pictures, or “dozens of pages” of text, HP said, adding that the chips do not require a battery.

Memory Spot chips get their power using a technique called inductive coupling, which allows power to be transferred from one component to another through a shared electromagnetic field. In the case of Memory Spot, this power is supplied by the device that is used to read and write data on the chip.

Data stored on Memory Spot chips could be accessed using a variety of devices, such as specially equipped cell phones or PDAs (personal digital assistants), making them suitable for a range of applications, such as adhesive attachments applied to a paper document or printed photograph, HP said.

HP is considering different applications for the chip, but has yet to say when the chips will be available.

The Memory Spot is similar to RFID (radio frequency ID) chips, which are designed to store information that can be read wirelessly. However, there are several important differences. One such difference is range. Information on RFID chips can be read over relatively large distances while HP said Memory Spot readers must be “positioned closely” to access the data stored on the chip.

[tags]hp, memory, technology[/tags]

By: Sharon Jacobsen

The web is based on links. The reason the phrase “surfing the Net” came about is because you could move smoothly from one site (wave) to the next, simply by following links. A website without any outward bound links is a dead-end that spoils the surfing experience.

Because links are vital to the web’s existence, the number of links a website has pointing to it is one of the most important factors used by search engines when working out search result positions. Even if you have all the right keywords in place and your website is content rich, without links pointing to it, it still won’t rank as well as it could or should.

Once upon a time, link exchange schemes ensured that webmasters had enough links pointing to their websites. The result was website links pages that were full of links that bore absolutely no relevance to the subject the website itself was concerned with. These links pages were mostly useless to the visitor - after all, if you’ve visited a site about business banking, would you really want to follow a link to a site about cake decorating or space travel? Probably not. The chances are you’d want information that was relevant to either business or banking and before long, the search engine administrators started to realise this. (more…)

By: Karen Blundell

Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I’ve noticed some interesting things:

* My search engine rankings have dramatically improved
* My bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75%
* I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet.

Let’s look at why my search engine rankings improved. Now that I have less un-indexable code on my pages, the search engines can now spider my site quicker. Less code, more content, therefore a better ranking. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Bandwidth costs money, and unless you have a really good HOSTING plan with lots of bandwidth, then your larger files will take up more room on your server, and take a lot longer to load. Tableless designs use up considerably less bandwidth and are more accessible. (more…)

By: Halstatt Pires

Once a visitor gets to your web site, you want to make sure they can find what they are looking for quickly and easily, or they will just go elsewhere. If a web site is easy to use and understand, visitors will come back time and time again.

Using intuitive navigation techniques will greatly improve the usability of your web site, and therefore user satisfaction and return rates. By intuitive navigation, I mean some sort of menu, map or list that is instantly understandable to most visitors to your web site.

One of the first points to making a site easy to navigate is to have a consistent menu that is on every page. By having a menu that is on every page of your site, users can move from each section from any other section, with out having to go back to a home page or menu page.

Keeping the menu in the same location, and in the same style throughout your site ensures that visitors quickly recognize how to navigate your site. If you have a different style menu on every page, users may get confused and not as easily comprehend how to navigate your site. (more…)