Child Health and Safety Issues

Child health or safety issues face us every day. Every generation is smarter, bolder, and more curious than the preceding generation. That is why it is imperative that we address safety issues and keep a keener eye on our children.

Lately, summertime is a time for concern as the number of children drowning has reached nauseating heights. Even one child dying by accidental drowning is too much and something that no parent or guardian can ever fully forgive themselves for. Fences and locking gates around pools have just been implemented in the public conscious because of such tragedies that have occurred over the past several years.

Other child health or safety issues revolve around lead in toys that are imported from overseas. Although lead has been banned from paint on toys in the United States since the late seventies, other countries still have no restrictions and perhaps use it for its economic values or a lack of education as to the danger of it. America has a responsibility to educate and perhaps help fund those countries and companies to make the transition to non lead paint.

Plastic can also contain lead and has yet been banned from plastics on children's toys. Lead actually makes plastic more flexible and more durable in heat. But a health issue is that when plastic is exposed to some detergents the chemical bond between lead and plastic breaks down and forms a dust that can be ingested through inhalation and lead to respiratory infections and other incubating afflictions.

Children's health or safety issues should be at the forefront of the country's concerns as we are now more knowledgeable about chemical interactions and residues exposed under certain circumstances like washings. For a prosperous country the health and safety of its citizens is a major concern and subject to intense alterations of manufacturing.

Do-it-yourself kits have been put on the market to test for lead. However, they fail to indicate the levels of the element and as of yet there hasn't been any determination as to how reliable those kits are in detecting low levels of lead. Only a laboratory test could accurately determine the true level of lead in paint or plastic. Laws are being implemented to restrict the use of lead in paints and plastics.

School playgrounds have been replacing the concrete and blacktop surfaces are being replaced by mulch, wood chips, and sand to cushion children's falls and jumps off swings. The most effective safety feature is adult supervision and the education of kids to not jump off swings or from the top rungs of jungle gyms to prevent broken legs and twisted ankles.

For all the advancements in technology, it is important that the safety and health of our children forge ahead and evolve with the knowledge that's discovered with leading tests and statistical data.

Gary Pearson is an accomplished niche website developer and author.

To learn more about child health visit Child Safety Today for current articles and discussions.

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How to Customize Your Computer

First off like building a car you need to pick out the chasis in the IT industry this is your case. Some may come with more fans a power supply or nothing at all.If you go to some sites you may see them selling cases with cathode ray tubes for lights and power supplies, that is all good. Just find something that you like and that you think looks cool. This is because it will soon be your computer and if you don't like the case you wont like it. So for this instance we will just use a case with no extras so you can see everything you can add from fans to power supplies, lights, and more.

Now that we have the case picked out we need to look at motherboards or main boards. These are the two most used terms for the starting point of the computers brains. This board will take several types of hardware to make it run successfully such as a processor, pci cards , and much more. You will need to look for a board that is within your budget. The most common form factors for the mother board are ATX and mini-atx or even ITX. Depending on the size of your case you will need the appropriate board. For instance you CAN NOT fit an ATX board into a mini-atx case and or visa versa. This is because in order to properly mount your board you will need a case where mounting holes line up with your board. Most cases today have the ability for multiple configurations to make mounting easier. Now one big tip would be to make sure there are NO loose bits of metal, and or foreign objects as this will short out your new board. Consult your boards directions for the proper way to mount your board. There are many different brands of boards out there so I will not even begin to go into that. One of the main factors you will want to consider when getting a board is the type of processor you want to put in it. Intel or AMD. They are both reliable producers of processors though you once again can not stick an Intel processor in the slot for an AMD board. A popular type of processor that is from intel is a socket 775 processor. The processor will usually come with instructions to properly install your processor and fan. Make sure that before you put the fan on that you put a small dab of heat compound on the fan and install it properly. The other factor you will want to consider is the type of slot for the video card and other cards you will add.

With the latest boards there typically will not be an on board video card so you will have to purchase one. So depending on the board you have your new board wil either have an agp slot or pci-e e is short for express. These are just different technologies for your graphics cards. Now if in the absolute worst case scenario you cant purchase either card appropriate for your board there may be some computer shops that you could get a pci video card for. NOT RECOMMENDED. Also note once again that you CAN NOT mix and match slots and cards. agp to agp and pci-e to pci-e. PCI-E cards are more popular now days than agp. You will be more likely to get a pci-e card as opposed to agp. Each cards price will depend on the size of its memory. You will pay more for a 512 mb card than a 128 mb card and so on.

Now that we have the case the motherboard, processor and video card you will need to focus on the hard drive and optical drives. TYpically on modern computers you will not see a floppy drive. We will not even worry about this piece..

So for the hard drive you will need to look at a few key factors. Its rpm or revolutions per minute, its size and how it is connected to the motherboard.

You will more likely see hard drives with an rpm of either 5400 or 7200. The more rpm the more it will cost. The same goes for the size of the hard drive. The more space will generally cost you more money. You will want to select your hard drive and video card as well as processor based on what you want to use the system for. This means do not use a budget system with minimal hardware to play graphically intense games or to install windows vista on.

For a general use computer for school work downloading music and online games that are not graphically intense your best bet may be with a 128 mb video card and a 160 GB hard drive. But for those that are more into graphics games and processor intense programs you will want more memory for your graphics card , ram and more space for your hard drive. After I go over the ways to connect the hard drive to the motherboard i will go over the specifics in ram.

Now there are two ways to connect a hard drive to a motherboard. You can determine the type by the way the back end of the drive. If you see a set of two rows of pins that are either 16 or 18 pins long then you have an IDE hard drive. If you just see two small flat areas one being slightly larger than the other you have a SATA or Serial ATA Drive. SATA drives are better since their cables are able to move data much faster than the ribbon cable used for the IDE drives. The same types of connections that are used for a hard drive are also used for the optical drives.

For ram or random access memory is a semi long flat board with several chips on it. Your most common types of memory are sdram, ddr, and ddr2. There is also an opsolite technology for ram called rambus. Take a look on the net for it if you wish.

Sdram is for older motherboards ranging from socketA on down. These are more expensive and hard to find. Now you will need to consult your motherboard manual on the type and speed of the memory needed. DDR is used for socket 478. DDR2 is for socket 478 on up.The speed of the memory will depend on the requirements of the processor and motherboard.

So now we have the case, motherboard, memory or ram, processor, video card and hard drive. We still need the sound card and optical drives. As far as sound cards go you may have an option or two. Some boards do still come with either a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound-sound card, but if you want something better then you will have to go with a pci card. Now depending on how much you want to spend you can get just a basic sound card for fairly little money though if you want more out of it then you will be looking at more of an expensive model. There are even cards out there that will ship with a front panel that will slip in the 5.25 bay under your optical drive.

To cap the system off you will need some sort of an optical drive to be able to read and burn discs. You can go from a basic cd burner all the way to a blueray burner. Though I have no experience working with blueray burners I do know that a dvd DL or dual layer burner will allow you to read and write cds and dvd/s Note that if you get discs that have a -R those are readable. This means that once they have been burnt and finalized thats it no more data can be put on the disc. The exception to this is if you were to create what is called a multi-session disc. So if you have a file on a cd that takes up 450mb of the disc you can save it to where the next time you run your burning program you can fit a file or more to take up the remaining 150mb. If you get discs with a-RW that means that of course they are rewritable. Need I say more.

Oh and one last part I forgot to tell you about is the power supply. This is where of course all those parts will get power from. You will see one large trunk that has a clip on it along with several smaller connectors and maybe even a semi thin black flat connector for your sata drives. Take the trunk and plug it into the mounted board. Make sure not to force anything otherwise the traces on your board will break and your board will be dead. Make sure that the clip is facing the notch on the power connector. This means that the clip should be firmly over that little overhang and the pins should fit tightly into that connector. There will be a smaller 4 pin connector that needs to be inserted also onto the board. locate it and make sure the clip is on the same side as the notch on the connector when inserted into the board. There are different wattages for power supplies This all depends on the amount of power needed for your drives and pci agp and pci-e cards.

Well I hope that this article has been helpful. Know that the information outlined above is all dependent on your budget and what you are wanting to use the system for. I would suggest more memory, hard drive space and a bigger size memory for your video card if you are a gamer or have programs that use up alot of your systems resources. If you are wanting something for the average user that downloads music, plays online games and browses the net then a system with less ram hard drive and video card can be put to good use. Just do your research and if you are not comfortable with taking on the task of putting together your system you can always have someone here at Baker IT Services put it together for you. So take your time to take a look at our site atwww.bitsonline.us and have a wonderful day!

Jason Baker
Baker IT Services
916.752.0205

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It's Time For Bloggers in the Coachella Valley to Chill Out!

This weekend would be a great time for bloggers to just Chill Out! Why, well because the temps may be in the 110 plus range here in the Coachella Valley, that's why. And being one who likes to lead by example and let cooler heads prevail, I have a strategy to Chill Out. How so you ask?

Simple, my plan is to soak up some ambiance inside in a perfectly air-conditioned room, maybe do a little shopping, go to a book store or two, travel in an air-conditioned vehicle and go out to eat in an air-conditioned restaurant. Of course, I will be spending some time in the evenings outdoors, in the pool. I encourage all bloggers to chill out and enjoy coolness.

Go to where the cool people hang out. Just relax and chill out this weekend. Think cool, be cool and stay cool! Bloggers who remain cool tend to blog better and more relaxed, thus their words are better received. Any hot head can spew venom and hate or write nasty blog posts complaining about this, that or the other thing, but when cooler heads prevail, it's a better blogging experience for all.

Many folks do not enjoy blogging because of all the mean-spirited comments they receive, but many of those comments are due to the very blog posts they render. It's time for bloggers in the Coachella Valley to chill out and perhaps bloggers around the world also? Please be considerate, think twice about the comments and blog posts you make and keep it cool.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Blog Content Service If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/