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Social Networking for Toddlers -IOBR

When you’re in the habit of being logged into Facebook or Twitter 24/7, you’d expect no less from your kids, right? And I’m not talking about your pre-adolescent son on your teenage daughter, but your toddlers. Yes, you heard that right! Two Finnish designers have come up with a social networking tool for kids called IOBR.

Tune your kids into social media

IOBR is a device that toddlers can use to tell others what they are doing. It has no reading or writing involved (duh), just what toddlers usually pick up when they’re growing. The IOBR has a set of different shaped blocks with an icon on each of them. For example, an eating block has the image of a fork on it, or a sleeping block will have the image of a bed with a horizontal figure on it. So if the toddler is taking a nap, all he or she has to do is place a triangle shaped block in its respective hole. The other toddler who has the IOBR will be notified immediately, as the block will light up on their device.
The IOBR was built from an existing toy, the Brio Shape sorting box, and the status updates are triggered using magnets in the blocks. Apparently, the two designers say that this device has been a huge hit with their children, especially the girls.

Inception Video Game Confirmed

A while back, director Christopher Nolan expressed an interest in making a video game adaptation of Inception. Today, he confirms via Entertainment Weekly that the game is a ‘Go ahead’ but is a long way from release.
"I always imagined Inception to be a world where a lot of other stories could take place. At the moment, the only direction we're channeling that is by developing a video game set in the world", Nolan told the magazine.

Cue badass music

Of course, don’t expect the game anytime soon as Nolan is busy working on the third Batman flick. On top of this, no developer or publisher has been attached to the project yet. However, he also mentioned that the game (or the franchise maybe?) would be a “long term proposition”. Now I’m not too sure what Nolan means by that but I’m guessing it’s another way or saying we’ll milk the daylight out of this franchise. Either that or they’re planning some sort of a persistent online game where mass mind jacking will ensue.
So has this announcement made your day, or will it give you sleepless nights? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Predict A Failing Hard Disk

Mechanical hard drives, as we know them, consist of moving parts such as spinning platters and moving read/write heads hovering above the spinning platters. It is natural that there is wear and tear as you use them. Since all your precious data that you have painfully collected for several years is usually on the hard drive, it is always better to know the health state of your hard drive. Fortunately, there are several ways to predict if a hard drive is going to give up on you, by looking for tell tale signs. Here are some of them.

1. The first thing to look for signs of trouble in a mechanical hard drive are strange clicking, grinding, whirring up and down, or clunking sounds, which you normally wouldn't hear from them. Such sounds can be heard as soon as you power up the PC with such a defective hard drive. You would be amazed to know that each brand of hard drives and even certain models make their own unique sounds before going kaput. There is a website, where you can listen to such sounds to know how they actually sound.

2. Another sign of a failing hard drive is when your computer intermittently freezes and returns back to normal repeatedly. Usually, this is associated with the clicking sounds we described in the previous point. While computers can freeze even when a hard drive is not faulty, it is the repeated freezing and unfreezing with the sounds that will let you decide that the problem is indeed with the hard drive.

3. Sometimes you may find that Windows runs CHKDSK at the start of each boot, even when you are sure that the computer was not abruptly shut down. Even when you manually run Scandisk, this still happens. You also often find cross-linked files and folder errors, files and folders disappearing suddenly or even files and folders with junk character names appearing. Such symptoms also point to a failing hard drive.

4. At times files and folders are visible, but cannot be opened. I have seen instances of a movie file partially accessible, and suddenly stopping in the middle of playback and the PC freezing. Sometimes you will notice that while copying a file or folder, it starts off well, but slows down and eventually comes to a sudden halt as the copying is in progress and the PC comes to a grinding halt. The reset button is the only option left in such a case to be able to use the PC again. This can happen if certain portion of the file is on a bad sector developed on the hard drive.

5. Here is another pattern observed in a mechanically defective drive, which is still in a fairly usable working condition. You may notice that it is not possible to install an operating system like Windows XP, while Windows 7 can be easily installed on the hard drive. Even then, you may notice that the system locks up during the booting frequently and you see the hard drive activity LED glowing steadily during such lockups.

6. You will frequent get Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) errors and these can happen any time, such as after Windows is up and running or even during boot time. There is not one particular error code for this, so you can find out only from trial and error.

7. SMART Diagnostics present in the drive give you a hint about the health status of the hard drive. Most hard drive manufacturers provide utilities for their drives to report health. There are quite a few third party utilities to find this out as well, such as Everest and AIDA64.
While the above signs are to be taken seriously, a hard drive may not exhibit any of the above symptoms and still crash.

What can you do if your hard drive crashes?

A crashed hard drive is usually not the end of the road. You can still recover data from it. There are software utilities available, both free and paid, that can do the job. The rate of success varies though, and depends upon the degree of damage suffered by the hard drive. It is always better to at least try to recover data using free software such as Recuva, or you can refer to my earlier article about free data recovery software for a complete list. But if your data is really precious and you are ready to spend money, then you can go for paid software. Sometimes, you will not be able to recover your data yourself, so you will have to take professional help, which is very expensive.
It is best to take care of your hard drive and computer as much as possible to reduce the likeliness of facing this situation. Some of the tips in my older article may be of help. Remember that a hard drive eventually dies, so back up your data to newer hard drives as their prices plummet. You can also back up your data to optical drives, since they also have a fairly long life if stored carefully. Yet another way would be to back up your important data online, as there are several free online services available that allow you to securely store your data.