This is the sixth and final in a series of Did You Know? blog posts. Each blog post gives fascinating facts on a particular topic. In part 1 the topic was science. In part 2 the topic was history. In part 3 the topic was geography. In part 4 the topics were art & music. In part 5 the topic was animals.
Today, I give you ten facts about Technology:
1. The first mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper in 1973.
2. The first iPhone was released in the UK in 2007. Today there are more than 682m iPhones in the world.
3. Alan Turing is most well-known for being an excellent code-breaker in World War 2. He happened to be gay and was castrated by the UK state for his sexuality. But he also proposed founding theories about how to make computers work and computer science.
4. The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. Today £1.7trillion is spent online in a year, 3m emails are sent every second (mostly SPAM) and there is countless amounts of data on the internet.
5. The X-ray was invented by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. The idea for the CT (Computed Tomography) scanner was first imagined by Godfrey Hounsfield in 1969. Hounsfield presented his idea to Dr. James Ambrose and they worked together to make his idea a reality. The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was developed by a number of people. The X-ray, CT scanner and MRI scanner have all revolutionised medicine, by allowing doctors insight to what it going on in a patient’s body, without the need for invasive surgery.
7. Someone using a computer will blink 7 times a minute, rather than the normal 20 times a minute. This is because they are concentrating more on the screen.
8. Technology of Sci-Fi TV shows and films is now becoming a reality. For example, in Star Trek computers respond to verbal commands and its responses were relatively intelligent. Today we have Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), Contina (Windows) and Android Voice Commands (Google/Android).
9. The operating system Linux is huge across servers, computers, tablets and smartphones. The chances are you use it without even realising. Linux is on every Android device, along with being on most serves (computers that host websites) in the world. Facebook, Google and Pinterest all run on Linux servers.
10. The people at Wired.com were the first to come up with banner advertisements, which are now used on most commercial websites.
My blog has been hosted on Vidahost for a number of years. But they recently emailed to inform me a price hike. So I decided to switch to another hosting provider, this blog post is about the process of transferring my WordPress blog from one server to another.
I should add that it wasn’t just the price hike that caused me to make this decision. Customer support is much poorer now than it has been in the past. For example: I got an email stating I was running out of disk space. I opened a ticket to see if I could increase disk space without upgrading package. The Customer Agent basically said no.
Then when I was transferring my files from Vidahost’s (old) server to 1&1’s (new) server (more details below) I noticed huge error logs (2.5GB one of them) and many .core files (100-200MB each). These files had eaten up my disk space (from the usual 2GB of 10GB used). At one time a Vidahost’s Customer Agent would have looked at my files on the server to see why I had run out of space all of a sudden, spotted the problem and resolved it.
I asked my friends on Facebook if they could recommend a good, UK-based Hosting provider. One of my friend’s husband recommended 1&1’s.
I decided to transfer my hosting as 1&1 offered a better price, unlimited bandwidth (which I was always in the red on Vidahost), unlimited disk space and more up-to-date servers (I’d recently had a few problems updating WordPress plugins on Vidahost servers due to PHP version).
But the prospect of moving my WordPress blog from one server to another was daunting. How the hell do I do that? I thought to myself. So I Googled it and found this great Step by Step Guide by WPExplorer.
There were a few hiccups. I successfully exported my WordPress database, but when I went to import it on the new server it timed out. I checked the database on the new server and found it was missing the last few fields. So I googled and found this site Exporting Your Database from Your Previous Host by WPEngine, which explains how to export specific fields. I exported the missing fields and then imported them. First problem solved.
Then I downloaded my files from the old server and uploaded them to the new server using ForkLift by Binarynights without any problems. I changed my wp-config.php and uploaded it. My second problem was an Error Establishing Database Connection. I googled the error and found How to Fix Error Establishing Database Connection by wpbeginner. This site helped me realise what I hadn’t updated in the wp-config.php.
My final step was to change the NameServers for my domain. I did this and my blog and emails went down for about 24 hours while NameSever propagation took place.
Once my blog and emails were back up, my final problem was that my blog wasn’t displaying right. Nothing I did fixed the problem. In the end I opened both the old server and new server’s File Explorers in Google Chrome.
It was then spotted the problem, all folders and files had different file permissions on the new server. So I changed them to match the settings on my current server, which solved the problem. Here is an article that explains more about file permissions: Ask Unbuntu – What is meaning of 755 permissions.
I had been thinking about getting a Seasonal affective Disorder (SAD) lamp for a while. Everyone I spoke to about it had friends that swore by theirs, but nobody that I knew actually had one.
So this Autumn, as evenings started to get darker earlier and there was less light in the mornings I treated myself to a Daylight Lamp by Beurer.
I have popped the daylight lamp on my desk and have used it daily, usually in the evenings after work throughout November & December.So what are my thoughts?
They are mixed. The dark mornings haven’t seemed to affect my mood as bad, but this could be the placebo effect.
Despite the Daylight Lamp box boasting that the lamp is medically certified it doesn’t reference any specific research studies to back this claim up, let alone some good longitudinal research studies.
It appears to work. Getting up in the dark mornings hasn’t felt as difficult as in previous years. Nor has my mood seemingly been affected as much as normal by the lack of light. This could be the placebo effect, but does it really matter? As long as it works.
It is easy to setup and work. Simply position it, plug it in and use the one simple on/off switch on the front.
It is super-bright. I have nicknamed it my God Light.
It has a stand, so sits on my desk easily.
It is thin, meaning that it doesn’t take up much space.
It is plastic, meaning that it is easy to dust/clean.
It is lightweight meaning that it is easy to move. You could take it to work or other places with you.
The lamp made no difference to my blood sugars, which is a good thing as a type 1 diabetic.
It was expensive, when compared with other non-SAD lamps, costing nearly £50.
Replacement bulbs can only be bought from the manufacturer and not in any high street shops. I haven’t tried looking online, it’s possible that I’ll be able to get bulbs online. Hopefully they are not to expensive.
Switching on/off the lamp requires you to hold the back, as the product is so lightweight that trying to press the switch without holding the back results in it moving.
The front of the lamp does get warm/hot to the touch once it has been on a while. The manufacturer does recognise this and warms customers about it in the instructions.
I’m a really casual gamer. I play all my games on my Mac and don’t own a console. At the moment I’m super excited about the games out, in development or coming out soon. So I’m going to write about my top four favourite games which are: Prison Architect, The Universim, Sid Meier’s Starships and Civilisation 6.
1. Prison Architect
Prison Architect has Very Positive ratings on Steam.
In Prison Architect you build, manage and maintain a prison. The player manages every aspect of the prison including: the staff, the prisoners, the routine, the rehabilitation programmes, etc.
It originally started out as an Indie game by Introversion Software. I backed it on Steam as a pre-alpha and later had my brothers name put in the game. The great thing about this was each month, I got/get a free update with new content, bug fixes and improvements.
Since then it has has launched as version 1, being available on both PC and Mac. It has loads of positive reviews on Steam, tens of thousands of players and has just launched or about to launch on consoles. The creators have also recently won BAFTA for the game.
It’s a great game that I played over 128 hours on various prisons. Totally absorbing and addictive. I would highly recommend you go get it and play it. Below are screenshots of a prison that I’ve been building and managing for well over a year:
My Prison (1), I’ve been playing this prison for well over a year and for hundreds of hours.
My Prison (2), I’ve been playing this prison for well over a year and for hundreds of hours.
About: A game where the player builds, manages and maintains a prison.
Platform: PC/Mac, Linux, XBOX & PS4.
UK Price: £19.99
Status: Version 1 released on PC/Mac a few months ago. XBOX version 1 released shortly after. PS4 version 1 release date is 28th June 2016.
The Universim is a god-game and planet management game by indie game developer Crytivo Games. It has previously received Kickstarter backing and is currently in pre-alpha. I backed it on their website, buying the DIMETRODON EDITION, which cost me $60 (US Dollars). The great thing is that they have different packages for all price ranges.
This game is visually beautiful. From the trees to the weather, to the animals, nuggets and buildings. The artwork is stunning. The game has little people, called nuggets, which the player is god over.
is in the pre-alpha stage, meaning that it is still in development. Each month a patch is released (on 15th of each month), as well as patch notes and other updates. Other updates focus on the future game development including ideas, concepts and plans. The developers are currently getting the core game mechanics right, so at the moment there isn’t much to play. If you’re looking for a finished game, as the creator and designers say, wait to purchase until sometime in the future.
If you love backing games and giving feedback on bugs and ideas to shape the game, pre-order it today. Providing that you choose a package that has pre-alpha access, you’ll be able to download the current version and play it straight away. The game has a really cool launcher built in that checks the server for updates every time the program is opened. Giving feedback and reading the feedback of others is easy on their forums.
Here are some screenshots from The Universim and a trailer video:
About: A god-game and planet management game with little people (nuggets). Features to come include: god powers, research, more buildings, nuggets moving through the ages from Stone Age to Modern Age, etc.
Platform: PC/Mac/Linux
Price: From $25-$250 (US Dollars)
Status: In the early stages of development. Pre-alpha.
Okay, so this game has been out for a while, but I love it. It’s a sci-fi game where you build a fleet of ships, undertake missions and conquer the galaxy. It received mixed reviews. I like this game and keep hoping that they’ll go back an release an expansion pack with more features. It’s a good game, that could be made brilliant by adding some of these features from my Wish List:
Bigger maps and bigger fleet (or more than one fleet of space ships).
More customisation of fleet.
Meaningful diplomacy.
More missions.
Longer game play.
Here’s some game play screenshots and a trailer video:
About: A sci-fi game where you build a fleet of ships, undertake missions and conquer the galaxy.
Platform: PC/Mac/iOS.
Price: About £10.
Status: Has been released for sometime.
4. Civilization 6
Civilization 6 Screenshot (1)
I have played the Civilization series since I was a teenager. I own every release of Civilization from Civilzation 2 all the way up to Civilization V with the Gods & Kings expansion pack. One of my favourite releases was Civilization: Call to Power because it had a future technologies meaning that you could have sea and space cities. I pre-ordered Civilization: Beyond Earth and it could have been so good, but it just wasn’t. It was completely disappointing.
has been long awaited by fans. But other than these three game play screenshots, the trailer video and the game description all below, there isn’t loads of information Civilization 6 which releases on Friday 21st October 2016.
Civilization 6 Screenshot (2)
Civilization 6 Screenshot (3)
GAME DESCRIPTION
PLATFORM: PC
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 21, 2016
FEATURES
EXPANSIVE EMPIRES: See the marvels of your empire spread across the map like never before. Each city spans multiple tiles so you can custom build your cities to take full advantage of the local terrain.
ACTIVE RESEARCH: Unlock boosts that speed your civilization’s progress through history. To advance more quickly, use your units to actively explore, develop your environment, and discover new cultures.
DYNAMIC DIPLOMACY: Interactions with other civilizations change over the course of the game, from primitive first interactions where conflict is a fact of life, to late game alliances and negotiations.
COMBINED ARMS: Expanding on the “one unit per tile” design, support units can now be embedded with other units, like anti-tank support with infantry, or a warrior with settlers. Similar units can also be combined to form powerful “Corps” units.
ENHANCED MULTIPLAYER: In addition to traditional multiplayer modes, cooperate and compete with your friends in a wide variety of situations all designed to be easily completed in a single session.
A CIV FOR ALL PLAYERS: Civilization VI provides veteran players new ways to build and tune their civilization for the greatest chance of success. New tutorial systems introduce new players to the underlying concepts so they can easily get started.
There has already been a huge reaction among fans to the screenshots. Many of them dislike the artwork that they have described as ‘cartoony.’ I doubt at this late stage of the games’ development that the artwork will change. The artwork has grown on me a little. But I’m concerned that it might reflect a dumbing down of the game’s complexity, which is what has made previous versions so addictive to play.
I like the idea of unstacking cities and city districts and think that it will add to game play. I’m not keen on the DLC or the difference in price between the Standard and Deluxe editions of the game. I feel the standard edition is to expensive, never mind the cost of the deluxe edition, so I will most likely wait until a reduction in price and would advise you to do the same.
Essential Info
About: The latest strategy game from the award-winning Civilization series.
Platform: PC (Unsure if it will have Mac compatibility on launch, but no doubt a mac version will follow if not.)
Price: £49.99 standard edition, £69.99 deluxe edition.
Status: Releases on Friday 21st October 2016.
Blog soon,
Antony
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Sunday 22 May 2016
About
Antony Simpson - Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.
Author of eight books.
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