Blogcritics Section: Sci/Tech

Sleep Apnea Risks and Reprieves

Bruce Kaler M.D. — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 03:19:39 EST

Do you Snore?
If you snore a lot you may be one of many people affected by sleep apnea. You may be someone who stops breathing hundreds of time during the night but remain unaware of what’s happening. If you’re lucky, your spouse may complain about how much you snore or describe how you hold your breath and stop breathing during the night. If...

iPhone Application Review: Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner

Robert M. Barga — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 03:07:52 EST

It�s like a cookbook, just on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Are you an aspiring amateur chef looking for a big hit with the family? Got a BIG dinner with the boss planned and have no idea what to cook? Kid tells you at the last second that you need to bring an appetizer to school that night? If you said YES to any of the above, or if you just want to have a nifty electronic cookbook, then Allrecipes.com...

The Relationship Among Listeriosis, Salmonella, E. Coli, and Iron

Marie Warder — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 01:44:39 EST

Sounding the alarm for a potentially lethal combination.
Canada recently weathered a Listeria outbreak and a Salmonella scare, and, in Walkerton, E. Coli caused the death of some of the town's citizens. I maintain that the omission of 'persons with iron overload' on official, published lists of those most at risk to have been a gross oversight. There are other causes of iron overload, but I...

2008: A Bad Year for Vitamins

Bruce Kaler M.D. — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 22:01:00 EST

Misconceptions about vitamin and nutritional supplements. Fact vs. fiction.
As recently reported in the New York Times, “the news for vitamins keeps getting worse.” What is abundantly clear is that there is an awful lot we still don’t understand about the human condition, in particular how vitamins, minerals, and other micronutirents are utilized. It certainly is seductive to all of us that simple...

Twitter Users (Including Barack and Britney) Hacked and Phished

Ed Dickson — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 18:08:23 EST

Twitter has been the target of a phishing attack and Barack Obama's Twitter account was hacked over the weekend.
The Phishermen (and probably a few women) are always looking for fresh waters to hook some unsuspecting phish -- so it should be no surprise that Twitter is their latest target. After all, e-mail, cell phones, and Facebook have already been phished, along with countless desktops and laptops.According to a Symantec blog post, Twitter users are...

Product Review: ToughDrive Camo USB2.0 Flash Drive

Janica Unruh — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 16:58:19 EST

A flash drive that may not have reliable storage but can be lit on fire.
I don’t know if anyone else’s school did this, but every year when I took the ever dreaded grade school picture, I was given a free plastic comb. Usually in a variety of bold colors, these combs always had a little inscription that read “unbreakable.” But for a grade schooler, it wasn’t just an informative adjective....

Software Review: Genuine Fractals 6.0 From onOne

T. Michael Testi — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 13:15:00 EST

If you need to dramatically increase image size while maintaining quality, then you need Genuine Fractals 6.
The problem begins with an image that's great, but because you shot it with your 3 megapixel camera, you can get a decent 4x6 inch print, but when you try to get an 8x10 or larger, it just doesn't look the same. Or you try to make an 8x10 from your digital camera file but it will only go to 8x12, or 7x10 because the sensor size on your...

Software Review: Kubota Pro Pak - Part 1 From Kubota Image Tools

T. Michael Testi — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 23:05:31 EST

The Kubota Pro Pak will pay for itself in time savings and customer satisfaction over and over again.
The Kubota Pro Pak is a bundled package of products that contains six of the most popular tools from Kevin Kubota's professional image enhancing tools for Adobe Photoshop. This package includes the four Artistic Series of actions, his Production Tools, as well as his Formula Book which contains 42 separate recipes to get just the look you want.Who...

Software Review: DiffDog 2008 from Altova

T. Michael Testi — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 21:49:11 EST

If you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what files have changed then DiffDog 2008 is a perfect solution.
DiffDog 2008 is a difference/merge tool for software and application development. It is a graphical differencing utility that will allow you to visually compare and merge text or source code and synchronize directories using a straightforward visual interface. It also provides advanced XML-aware differencing and editing capabilities. What this...

Ten Amazingly Accurate Tech Predictions for 2009

Robert M. Barga — Fri, 2 Jan 2009 20:11:07 EST

Fanboys, get ready to argue...
1) Apple will start to lose desktop/laptop market share. While Apple has never really had a large share of the market, they have been making slow but steady gains the last few years. The biggest increase for Apple is in the college demographic. However, with the stumbling economy, the masses will buy fewer and fewer computers from Apple as they...