Why Do People Travel?

Though this seems to be a very simple question, the answer for this can be different for different people or from perspective. Most of the people love to travel. But many of them doesn’t go for trips due to many reasons; either because of lack of time, or family background, or lack of money, or circumstances. Whatever may be the reason, majority of the people have an instinct to travel which they may realize or not.

            For some people traveling is a passion. They ignore any obstacles they may have to face prior or subsequent to their travel. Once they decide to travel, nothing matters for them. They just decide their destination and go traveling even if it takes many days to reach. I know someone who just travel kilometers and kilometers in his car whenever he feels like traveling, and for him it doesn’t matter whether he is traveling alone or with a group. The motivation for travel may be different for different people depending upon their character, interests, etc.

            The reasons for travel can be generally categorised into travel for pleasure, travel for knowledge and travel for business. All the motivation towards travel comes under any of these categories.

            Traveling is the first word which comes to my mind when I think about pleasure. Traveling helps in relieving stress. There are times when you want to take break from your normal routine.Then, traveling is the only solution which isolates you from all your problems of life and gives you complete relaxation.  It may be the situation you may often dream about in your life; free from all the responsibilities, tension, fears etc. Traveling in groups with family or friends is also a kind of pleasure trip. It creates sweet memories in the minds of the people which may last forever. Such pleasure trips will make us understand the importance of the relationships. Spending time with family and friends is the greatest pleasure anyone can experience. The people and situations may change, but the memories will never fade away. Exploring and enjoying the beauty and distinctiveness of new places also gives lot of pleasure; the same pleasure which a small baby gets when he starts walking for the first time. Travel for pleasure may also account for travel for knowledge.

            Every activities or events in life create knowledge of something, knowingly or unknowingly. In the same way, traveling also generates knowledge. Traveling helps in exploring new places, experiencing new cultures, meeting new people and making new friends. Some people want to learn the culture and traditions of a new place to understand the cultural differences. For understanding the real culture, they interact with the inhabitants and live like the one. It is a real challenge. Such travel gives them the real time experiences which gives them a new perspective about their life. Some people also travel for conducting studies and researches, which may generate new findings. Knowledge about a place may result in travel for business.

            Some places may be famous for some exotic products or there are some places where we get things cheaper. This has promoted the travel for business to a large extend. Though virtual world through internet has become famous for business, still the travel for business is common everywhere.

            Whatever may be the reason to travel, enjoy your travel to the maximum. When you get opportunity to travel, don’t waste it with silly reasons. Understand it was real life style of humans in prehistoric eras or nomadic eras. Travel the world; explore, learn, see, discover and enjoy what the earth has to offer.

Employee Satisfaction

Employee Satisfaction is concerned about how happy an employee is with his job. Satisfied employees are the real assets of the business. A good entrepreneur is the one who identifies the needs and wants of an employee and fulfill it, thereby motivating the employees. Lack of this in the large companies, affecting the productivity and hence success of the company, was a subject of many organizational researches from early 19th century.

Many researches have found that happy Employees can increase the productivity of the company. The vital question here is how to make an employee happy. There are many factors that lead to satisfaction among the employees. The factor which creates satisfaction in one employee may not satisfy another. So the major concern for any company is identifying the factors that motivate their employees.

Salary increments or bonuses can motivate the employees to a large extend. But beyond a point, this factor cannot motivate the employees. The money alone cannot motivate the employees. There are many other factors which can enhance the satisfaction of employees.

The employees are satisfied in a place where they feel they are given care and importance. This is the psychology of human beings. So the companies must accept the employees as the part of their team or family, which may create morale in the minds of the employees. This feeling can create the employee to utilize their fullest potential in their tasks, which inturn increases the productivity. The morale helps the employees to perceive the organizational goals as more important than their own goals.

The work environment is another factor which creates satisfaction among the employees. The employees should be given job security. The environment should be motivating the employees rather than compelling them to work within the boring cubicles. For this, there should be both upward and downward interaction in the hierarchy of organization. This implies that there should be proper interaction with the supervisors, subordinates and the co-workers.

The employees must be given the voice in the decision making process of the organization which will increase the confidence among the employees. The employees must be given the freedom of doing the tasks in their own style and way rather than compelling them to do the tasks in the manner the supervisor like. This can lead to creativity and innovation.

The success of every organization depends on its satisfied employees. The employees must be given due respect and their ideas and thoughts must be given proper weightage. The concerns and grievances of the employees must be handled which inturn enhances their morale. Satisfied employees are not only the assets of the company, bust also the factor which keeps the company going.

Plasma TV V/S LCD

The idea of television has changed from a small ordinary box kept at corner to large high definition flat panel display which serve multipurposes with advanced features. While selecting a flat panel display, we have two options to choose from, whether to opt for plasma TV or for LCD. With many pros and cons to weigh, to decide which flat panel TV to select, we need to consider the features of both.

Image Formation

Plasma TV has numerous pixel cells containing natural gases like neon and xenon, which gets excited to glow and produce electromagnetic radiation(  UV) . Behind these cells, there are red, green and blue phosphors which emit light when activated. Invisible UV light produced by the cells activates phosphors to produce appropriate colors.

In LCD, a liquid crystal is sandwiched between two sheets of polarized glass. When an electric charge is allowed to hit, the crystal rotates, resulting in the change of polarization of light passing through it. LCD reproduce light by a process of subtraction. They block colors wavelengths from spectrum of white light until they get the right color.

Color Accuracy - Plasma TV can create 16.77 million colors and thus exhibits richness in color. LCD produce colors by subtracting colors from white light. Hence, LCD are not as good as plasma Tv in color accuracy.But disadvantage of plasma TV is that, its display dims over time.

Lifespan - Plasma TV has a lifespan of about 20,000 to 30,000 hrs, whereas LCD has a lifespan of abt 50,000 to 60,000 hrs.

Contrast Ratio - Contrast ratio is the measurement of brightest white against blackest black. If contrast ratio is higher, details on screen will be more clear. In plasma TV, if we review independently, contrast ratios is 200:1, whereas in LCD it is 350-450:1.

Screen Size - Plasma TVs as big as 50 inches and above are available. But no plasma TV lesser than 32 inches are available. LCDs are available in screensize between 13-46 inches.

Viewing Angle - Plasma TV has large viewing angle than LCD TV of about 160 degrees. So it is possible to view Plasma TV clearly from any angle.

Burn-in - Burn-in occurs when image stays on screen for some period of time. Plasma TV has slight potential for burn-in. LCDs might show ghost images ( blurred images) while displaying fast moving images like in sports.

Plasma Tv has advantage over color accuracy, burn-in, viewing angle and screen size than LCD, Plasma TVs are much costlier. Though there is a problem of lesser viewing angle for LCD, it can be clearly avoided as we view our TV from prearranged seats in the room. Better contrast ratios of LCD also helps to overcome the lesser color accuracy unless we are using only HDTV standard compliant files ( HDTV compliant media are rare in market). Affordability and lifespan also playing a crucial role, LCD can be preferred over plasma unless you are planning to have full fledged theatre experience at any cost.

Tracking Others Or Being Tracked By Others

What if you can watch your friends or dear one's location, whenever you want? Yes, now this is possible with Google Latitude. With this, it is possible to track our location. This is a new service added to google maps for mobile, that allows you track your friend's location on map. Once you have selected Google latitude, you will be able to see the correct location of your chat friends, who like to share their location with you. Thus it is possible for us to know whether a friend has reached our town for vaccation, or a mother can see her child has struck somewhere on the way back home. Remember that, others can also track our location in the same way we track theirs. 

We will be able to share our location with our close ones. Other than automatically finding our location, we can set our location as we wish using Latitude iGoogle gadget. It can be misused with this feature of manually setting our own location. What if, your friend has set his location in home town, you go to see him, and come to know that he is not at home? Latitude is now available on Blackberry, Windows mobile, Symbian s60 and java enabled mobiles.

Realistic Surround Audio For Home Audio-Video System

    Providing a good audio set up is an important step towards setting up a home cinema audio-video system, which include selection of appropriate amplifier and loudspeakers. Choosing an expensive system is not the key to an effective audio setup, but it is the proper scientific arrangment of components which is crucial.

 

    In case of amplifiers, we have to decide whether we need two channel stereo sound or surround set up. Surround sound supports built-in decoding of Dolby and DTS system. Amplifiers with 50W r.m.s per channel is enough for domestic purpose. The important thing to be noticed is that amplifier selected should have atleast two HDMI inputs and two HDMI outputs ( HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface - default connection between audio and video equipment ). Though, inbuilt amplifiers and loudspeakers are available, external amplifier which support multiple loudspeakers are used ( surround set up).

    Stereo sound use two loudspeakers, one to the left and one to the right, infront of the listener. Two loudspeakers with same signal, at different volumes can produce sound, coming from any point between the two loudspeakers. If both the loudspeakers have same volume, the sound source appears to be in the centre. If right signal is louder, sound source move towards right and vice-versa.

    In surround set up, this principle is extended by using multiple speakers. We use five loudspeakers, and one bass reflex sub-woofer referred to as 5.1. According to principle of acoustics, as the frequency falls, the sense for direction of sound diminishes, so a single loudspeaker can provide bass frequency. It is the bass frequency which need largest and powerful loudspeaker, while upper and middle frequencies need only smallest loudspeakers. 

Two loudspeakers at the front provide left and right sound infront of the listener. The two rear loudspeakers in combination with front loudspeakers provides sound behind the listener. To strengthen the dialogues in close-up shots, a central loudspeaker is used behind or just above the middle of the screen.

(The speakers attached to wall of room indicates more pragmatic but less effective positions)

    5.1 layout has difficulty in placing two rear speakers in case of domestic system, because ideal position is just behind and above the listener.

 

    A single bass loudspeaker can be placed anywhere in the room, and appropriate place can be found, using trial and error method. The ideal position may be between two front loudspeakers.

    Smaller 5.1 systems eliminate the need for separate amplifier, by incorporating five channel amplifier into sub-woofer cabinet.

Technology @ Calicut University

Calicut University has decided to introduce bar code for answer sheets.Earlier, false numbering was used for answersheet evaluation, which is a manual task and time consuming. Lets hope that bar code system averts the problem of getting answer papers valued in time.

Calicut university will be experimenting bar code system in B-Tech final semestar exam this year. Each answer paper will have a unique bar code, which will be sent to valuation camp, to enable tabulation on time.

Courtesy: Article by Abdul Latheef Naha, The Hindu

Operating System

Operating system is a unit of computer program that act as an intermediate between user of the computer and computer harware. A computing system has 4 components, namely harware, operating system, application programs, and user. Operating system helps user to interact with user, using various application programs. Thus OS provides an environment in which a user can execute programs.

The major functions of operating system are :

1) Manages system resources ( memory, processor, devices, and information). When more than one process is being executed in a system, it is OS which decides which process gets memory, processor, devices and information, and keep track of these resources. It also allocate these resources when requested, and deallocate it after use.

2) It provides priority system, which help to decide which job is to be executed when more than one job arrives.

3) It helps in interpreting commands and instructions.

4) It provides security and integrity.

5) It makes sure that all resources are used efficiently, and solve competition among various users.

6) It makes sure that data is stored in proper place, and programs are loaded properly.

7) It helps software to interact with hardware by translating the program into language understandable by hardware.

8) It also converts the processed data in machine language into a language understandable by the user.

   Though operating system doesn't perform any  function by itself, and provides only an environment within which other programs can do useful tasks, a computing system without OS is like land without language.

Image Courtesy : Webopedia, Wikipedia