Wheelchair Education 101: Which One Is Right For You?

Whether you plan on being in a wheelchair for just a short time or for the duration of your life, it is very important to pick the right one for you.

With so many wheelchairs on the market today, it can be a tough task to undertake; but you can easily purchase the right wheelchair for you by becoming knowledgeable about your choices. Before you buy your new mode of transportation, it is best to have an understanding of the different types of wheelchairs.

Manual wheelchairs are wheelchairs that need to be controlled by the person in the wheelchair, or by somebody pushing the wheelchair. There are a few different types of manual wheelchairs – lightweight or sports chairs that roll easily for those with upper body strength and are designed for every day use; standard manual wheelchairs that have the traditional cross brace frame and added support, child or youth wheelchairs that grow with a child and come in a variety of colors and styles; specialty chairs that are specifically designed for a variety of wheelchair lifestyles and needs and institutional wheelchairs that are the most affordable, but designed only for minimal wheelchair use – commonly used for transporting people in hospitals and nursing homes. They are most suitable for short-term use, for those who don't use a wheelchair too often or for those who have upper body strength. Those who have limited movement or a weak upper body may need someone to push them, or may want to consider the electric wheelchair.

Electric wheelchairs are wheelchairs powered by a motor. They were created especially for those individuals with limited or no body mobility, or for those who use wheelchairs as their primary source of getting around. They are pricier than manual wheelchairs, but the cost is definitely a wash when considering if your wheelchair needs are substantial.

Electric wheelchairs come in a few styles – the traditional style electric wheelchair resembles a manual wheelchair with the exception of the motor, battery and controls; and the platform electric wheelchair look more like a seat placed on top of the motor encasement.

The motor is often placed below the electric wheelchair in order to minimize any noise. The electric wheelchair controls are usually to the right or left of the arm rests, and can even be repositioned based on your wheelchair needs. People who enjoy outdoor activities regularly may need to be careful in an electric wheelchair – most models are designed for indoor use and can crack or become faulty over time. But, there are some indoor/outdoor models marketed today, and may be the outdoor enthusiast's best electric wheelchair bet.

Sports wheelchairs differ from the traditional manual wheelchair – they are very lightweight and designed to withstand the normal wear and tear that goes along with a number of sporting activities. Sports wheelchairs use lightweight metals that can withstand a beating like titanium, chrome, aluminum and steel tubing.

The base of a sports wheelchair is wider than other traditional wheelchairs in order to support different sporting activities, and the center of gravity can be adjusted for the individual using the sports wheelchair. The sports wheelchair is generally affordable, but the more custom features it contains, the more expensive it will be.

About The Author
Alan Jason Smith is the owner of http://www.unitywheelchairs.com which is a great place to find wheelchair links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.unitywheelchairs.com.

Finding A Cheap Digital Camera

There are a number of great websites that are dedicated to helping you find a cheap digital camera. Some of these can help you save a lot of money on your camera purchases. A lot of these websites will take the effort out of finding a cheap digital camera as they search the Internet and physical stores for the best deals for you.

There are so many sales, bargains, coupons and deals available to enable you to get a truly cheap digital camera that it can seem impossible to choose between them so it is important to find a website that gives reviews on the products as well as the vendors themselves. A cheap digital camera may not be such a good deal if it turns out that the vendor has poor levels of customer service.

Obviously, a lot of the cheap digital camera deals are constantly changing and having the latest information can be the difference between getting the camera you want and having to pay more because the offer has ended. Many websites have a number of services to help get the information about current cheap digital camera offers to you as fast as possible. You can choose to have specific cheap digital camera deals sent to you via email, mobile phone or palm text message or RSS feed amongst others. These alerts can be customized so that you can choose to only receive cheap digital camera offers that relate a particular vendor, brand of camera or area if you want to. You can also set the parameters that you would class as being cheap digital camera prices because everyone has a different budget.

Many people underestimate the influence that coupons and rebates can have on their search for the best cheap digital camera deal. It is a good idea to take the time to check through those available as they can make a big difference. Again, check to make sure that these are not subject to an expiry date or you may miss out on cheap digital camera offers.

At the end of the day there is nothing better than finding other shoppers who have bought a particular cheap digital camera. They can give you truly unbiased views about the camera itself and the place where they purchased it. You may want to pay a few dollars more to get a relatively cheap digital camera from another supplier if they have a lot of bad reviews from customers.

About The Author
Steve Gargin is the administrator of http://digital-camera-reviews.helper-guru.com/camera-digital-finepix-fuji-review/index.html which is a great website dedicated to giving free advice on Digital Cameras.

The Way Night Vision Works

Most people are familiar with the concept of night vision. After all, it is seen in countless action and spy movies. However, the truth is that night vision is more than a fantastical concept; it is reality. And with goggles, night scopes, binoculars and monoculars, it is possible to see on a moonless, cloudless night. In fact, the technology is so advanced that you can see a person standing more than 200 yards away. That's twice the length of a football field! The remarkable feat of human sight at night is accomplished one of two ways: image enhancement or thermal imaging.

Image enhancement is a night vision technique that collects tiny amounts of light that may not be perceptible to the human eye. These are the smallest glimmers of light, sometimes even on the lower end of the infrared spectrum, that are discovered by the device in use. The points of light are than amplified by the device to a point that allows the object or person to be seen easily.

The other way night vision works is by thermal imaging. This is technology that works exclusively in the upper portion of infrared light. Rather than gathering reflected light, this is heat that is given off by objects or people. This is known as thermal infrared, and it occupies the largest amount of space as part of the infrared spectrum (which is at the lower end of the light spectrum, below what is detectible by the human eye). This means that there is a great deal of wavelengths that can be detected by the proper devices. Because thermal imaging works by putting the heat coming from objects in visible form, it is to be expected that some objects will appear clearer than others. Humans, for example, emit more heat than a tree, and so a tree will not be as clear.

Night vision products make excellent additions to any surveillance collection, and they can be very helpful in locating objects or people in dark places. You will pay in a price range from under $300 to more than $15,000, depending on features, accuracy, and purpose of the accessories you choose to aid your night vision.

(c) 2005 Copyright www.spyassociates.com. This article is about: Night Vision

About The Author
Shawn Davis
To learn more about Spy and Surveillance Products visit http://www.spyassociates.com . Read other related articles at http://spyassociates.blogspot.com/.

Cell Phone Bugs

There are a couple of different ways that cell phone bugs can be used. There are fairly inexpensive low-tech cell phone bugs, and there are more expensive and much more rewarding, devices that can be used to hear what you need to hear, but that others might try to keep from you.

The first category of cell phone bugs is not really a cell phone at all. It merely looks like a cell phone. It can receive calls, and it will call you automatically, but this phone is not meant to be carried with you. This bug is meant to be "forgotten" or "charging" at the home or office. It plugs into a splitter that shares a phone jack with a regular phone. When a call is made, you can listen in to both ends of the conversation by use of your bug. The bug will even call you when the subject places a call so that you can listen in.

One of the cell phone bugs that require you to take a more active role in listening is a cell phone that is equipped to pick up transmissions by cell phones around it. Cell phone calls are among the easiest to intercept, as the sound is carried on frequencies right through the air. All you have to do is be in the vicinity of your subject and then dial in to your cell phone bug. It looks as though you are talking on your cell phone, but really you are listening in on a conversation.

Finally, the most advanced of cell phone bugs let you listen in, even if you are on the other side of the country — or even the other side of the world. This type of bug works like a regular cell phone. Give it to your subject, and then you can listen in to what she or he is doing whenever you want. The phone has a standard number, that anyone can call, and a secret number that only you know. When you call the secret number, a microphone is activated and you can listen in, not only to conversations held on the phone, but also to what is going on in the same room as the cell phone.

These devices are innocuous and common. They look like what everyone today has and seems to need. You cannot go wrong when you get the information you need using cell phone bugs.

(c) 2005 Copyright www.spyassociates.com. This article is about: Cell Phone Bugs.

About The Author
Shawn Davis
To learn more about Spy and Surveillance Products visit http://www.spyassociates.com. Read other related articles at http://spyassociates.blogspot.com/.

HDTV? You Ain't Seen NOTHING Yet!!!

Remember the Osborn? Or was it the Osborne? Actually, I knew it existed, but didn't care. This thing was a personal computer. Like we'd ever need one of those? Those new electric typewriters with memory were the rage. THAT was something!

Flash forward and we are upon the reverse engineered UFO goodies. Oh, wait, no, that's not exactly right.

It's the dawning of the age of Aquarius, age of Aquarius, Ah QUAR EEEE USSS. Um, no, that was some time ago.

It's the age of $3 US Gas. Not a good milestone

The age of HDTV!!! Remember when "high definition" included the terms "stems and seeds?" You do? You rascal.

No, this is about High Definition TELEVISION. Personally, I feel the word TELEVISON is so.... Fifties. We need a new one there. So did you jump for the Plasma? Or the LCD projector? The DLP? Have you got the home theater with all the tricked out electronics?

Don't put your ear directly on the high tech train tracks, then, because there's another train coming, and you'll hear it down the line.

UHDV is in the pipeline. On the track. In the lab. In the electron wind. Want to guess? Time's up. ULTRA HIGH DEFINITION.

Remember the movie where they invent this skull cap that would capture your emotions and immediately the bad guy looped someone having how shall we say – some very intense happy times... and turned himself into peak experience broccoli? Is that where all this is headed? Not for a while, if ever. HOWEVER: UHDV is close to the detail of 35mm film. With 7680 x 4320 pixels, this isn't far from the 4K (4,000 scan line) digital projection systems for big-screen movie theaters.

Donald Trump will be able to see how bad his hair looks like never before.

UHDV features 33 million pixels with a 60 frame-per-second (fps) progressive scan format.

NHK, the Japanese broadcasting giant who had HDTV in the 1980s... is behind the UHDV format, but reassures us it may be a long time before home theater UHDV becomes reality. That's corporate talk for, "Don't let the competition know how close we really are!"

With 32 times the bandwidth demands of HDTV, UHDV would be prohibitive for today's broadcast, cable and satellite technology. NHK's demo required a data rate of 24 Gbps. That was a few years back in Amsterdam where some people were close to hurling lunch because the moving car video hi-jinx was that real.

How real?

NHK cobbled together a custom camera of four CCD image sensors; then to show the output built a LCoS projector combining four eight-megapixel panels. Data storage, using 16 synchronized HDTV recorders, provided roughly 18 minutes of recording time, using 3.5 terabytes of total capacity and a screen about 12 feet high and 22 feet wide. NHK researchers called this "the sensation of reality saturation point," in the hopes of providing a completely immersive experience: 100 degrees of visual field angle, viewing from a distance of three-quarters of the height of the screen (about nine feet) with at least 60 pixels required for each one degree of visual field angle.

And speakers? UHDV offers 24-channel sound, or 22.2, containing vertically arrayed surround sound speakers: nine above ear level, 10 at ear level, three below ear level and two low-frequency subwoofer channels.

The format, according to NHK, is not so much intended for home use as for museums, public spaces and theaters. You tell The Donald.

Once upon a time there was SHOWSCAN. Special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull had his demo unit in a suburb of Dallas, behind a Chucky Cheese, if memory serves. I saw the demo.

The equipment and the Showscan Film Process of producing and projecting Showscan films are justifiably proprietary and patented. At the time, Showscan's discovery was hailed as the most significant advancement in film technology since the introduction of sound in the 1929 film "The Jazz Singer". (Not the one with Neil Diamond.) However, it remained as little more than a technological curiosity until the company developed new camera, high speed projectors, and built special theaters to showcase the revolutionary Showscan images. There was a catch-22 at work. Theaters weren't equipped for this state of the art projection so they couldn't convince investors to make films in that format. Solution: do it all in house.

I can't remember the specs but it was scarily real, 3-D, multi channel and way ahead of multi channel... or HDTV. I do remember it ran film through the gate much faster than normal projection speeds.

Today the company's simulation and specialty theatres are open or under construction in 24 countries around the world, located in theme parks, motion picture multiplexes, expos, world's fairs, resorts, shopping centers, casinos, museums, and other tourist destinations where somebody wants a rush.

If NHK can even come close, well...

Enjoy your puny HDTV now while you can, citizen.

About The Author

Bob Wood's website, http://www.GreatHomeTheater.com, covers the video and audio fields as they apply to home theater and home entertainment. Bob spent many years in the US and Canada at popular radio stations and recording studios as programmer, producer, and talent.

If You Haven’t, It’s Time You Did

Using the Internet is crucial to the well-being of just about any business, and that will be proven again during the final quarter of the year.

I have written before about the value of using the Internet to further your business goals, and that is going to ring especially true during this final quarter of the year.

Some of you will be skeptical since I work for a company that makes its money from people going online. That, however, does not make the point any less valid. Sometimes, the numbers speak loudest:

The US Commerce Department says that, last quarter, online sales posted their highest increase in three years
Forrester Research and Shop.org predict that web sales will go up by 22% this year
Digital cash registers will ring to the tune of more than $170-billion this year

"That's just great, Alex," you say. "But my clientele is local; the Internet is for people who want things that are not available here." There is some validity to that argument, but it is an incomplete answer. Pick a business and there is an online application that will help in some way. Take food delivery, for instance, not an enterprise typically noted for using the Internet. Would it help your eatery if hungry diners could go to your web site and see an online menu instead of calling so your staff can walk them through the options? What if they could email an order? What if they could also pay by credit card? All of this without your workers having to break stride, without the risk of someone's bad phone manners chasing away business, and without the possibility of a customer being stuck on hold.

This scenario can be extended to almost any other industry, especially the ones that, at first glance, seem poorly suited to the Web, such as service-based companies. For example, a homeowner who needs an exterminator or wants lawn care will have dozens of options. It is not likely that this consumer will contact each service provider, so your business may be eliminated before it even has a chance to be considered.

Simply going online is no guarantee that consumers will find you, but increasingly, people turn to the Internet when looking for services of all types, even services that are available locally. Let's say the homeowner mentioned above types "pest control, my city" or "lawn care services my community" into a search engine. If you have a website, it should come up in the results. Prospects can see what you offer, compare your services versus the competition, even fill out an online form with contact information. The salesperson in each of you will see that a lead, and a good one at that. The website didn't close the deal, but it did open the door.

Still, you're not convinced. Business has been good and local customers already know how to find you and are familiar with the product line. Does that mean you don't want more business? And, how do newcomers to town learn about you? Let's take that a step further; is your product limited to a locale clientele? The food delivery and homeowner examples above are, by nature, going to be geographically restricted. But, what if the food company carries certain spices, sauces, or marinades? What if the exterminator sells pest control products? What if the lawn care company also carries a line of fertilizers or herbicides?

Anthony Jordan is a plumbing contractor in South Carolina, but has regular customers in the Midwest, Rocky Mountains, and West Coast. Obviously, those customers don't expect Jordan to make house calls, but when looking for drain cleaners and related products, they go online and that's where they find Jordan. Online sales are not the biggest portion of Jordan's business, but they are sales he would not otherwise make.

If there is a 'but' in this, it's that designing and marketing a website takes time and money. Customers won't show up just because your website was built. Whether it's through paid advertising or including your web address on letterheads, business cards, and all other printed materials, you have to get the word out. You also have to do it consistently because the Internet is a crowded marketplace. Then again, isn't that where your business should be? As the famed philosopher Yogi Berra once said in describing a restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded." Think about that for a second.

The coming holiday season is likely to notch a new set of online sales records and if you don't already have a website, that spending will pass you by. That's okay; the online business doesn't end with holiday buying. The fact is that, with each passing month, people are spending more and more online. How many more months are you willing to let pass your business by?

About The Author
Alex Lekas is VP / Corporate Communications for AIT (www.ait.com), a web hosting company serving 191,468 business domains in 107 countries