Apple’s all-in-one PC

Apple's latest iMac is a sight to behold. With a 27-inch screen, it's the largest all-in-one PC we've seen. Whether this is excessive for a home PC will depend on your requirements, but there's always the 21.5-inch version for those with space and budget constraints.

Screen shine

The screen will completely capture the user's attention. Sitting in front of a 27-inch iMac fills up a large part of your vision, and it's almost difficult to focus on the entire thing at once. You'll have to lower the brightness a bit compared to most other monitors since it's shining in your face! Apple uses high-quality IPS panels and LED backlighting, and the colours are amazing.
The resolution, at 2650 x 1440, is comfortably larger than today's HD panels. Viewing angles are also spectacular, with no colour distortion till you're staring at it sideways. This is also the first time Apple has used a 16:9 panel in the iMac line. Photographs jump to life, movies are a treat, and Apple's wallpaper images really shine. If you use professional applications such as Photoshop and Aperture, or if you work with design and content creation, you'll never want to go back to anything else.
Initial concerns about cost and practicality are soon replaced with joy.

Looks

The black glass around the screen is now edge to edge, but it's still reflective - you'll need to twist around and tilt the iMac to get comfortable under fluorescent lights. Apart from its screen, the iMac looks only slightly different from the previous generation. The entire body is now aluminum, and the metallic "chin" in front is less obtrusive than before.
The DVD drive on the right edge now has an SD card slot for company, while all ports are still at the back. We would have loved to see at least the headphones socket and a couple of USB ports on the side for convenience now that the ones on the keyboard are gone. Features Our review model came with a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4 GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard drive, 8x DVD RW drive, and an ATI Radeon 4670 graphics card with 256 MB of RAM.
A 21.5-inch model with the same specs had the same configuration, while the lowest-end one has an onboard Nvidia 9400M graphics and half the hard drive space. Interestingly, you can custom-order a 27-inch model with Intel's new Core i5 or i7 CPU, giving you high-performance quad-core options for the first time - for hefty premiums though. All models come with Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WiFi N, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, inbuilt speakers and a microphone.
However, Blu-ray drives are absent from all models, which is a massive letdown when you have the huge 27-inch screen at your disposal. With no official online source of HD material in India, it's a huge waste of this device's potential. The selection of ports is interesting: audio in and out (analog/optical combo), four USB ports, FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, and a mini DisplayPort video output.
Mini DisplayPort will require an adapter for pretty much every TV or projector out there, which you'll have to buy separately. But there's a hidden trick: on the 27-inch model that we reviewed, this port can also be used as an input! The required cable isn't on the market yet, but once available, you'll be able to connect a DVD or Blu-ray player, game console, or any other video source to make even better use of the panel.
For those worried about the environment, the new iMac claims to be energy efficient, highly recyclable, and free of toxic chemicals including arsenic, mercury, and lead.

Usability

Probably the only sore spots are the bundled keyboard and mouse. The keyboard is totally wireless and uses Bluetooth to communicate. It's meant to be used from across a room, but it's quite uncomfortable that way.
For starters, it's just too small and dumps not only the number pad but also the nagivation keys (Page Up/Dn, Home, End, Ins, Del) that most laptops pack in. You can choose the older style wired keyboard at the time of purchase, but bundling this shrunken keyboard by default is a very strange decision indeed.
The mouse is Apple's new Bluetooth Magic Mouse, claimed to be the first one in the world with a multitouch surface. Again, it's too flat and narrow to be comfortable in the palm; Apple envisions that people will push it around with only their fingers on the surface.
The gestures are also limited to flicks for scrolling and two-finger swipes for page navigation, not the full range that's available on the current Macbook's glass trackpad. Mac OS X looks wonderful, but it's actually easy to lose the mouse cursor from time to time on such a high-definition screen. The iLife apps, especially Garage Band, are good fun, and using Photoshop and Illustrator was never more pleasurable.
However, for Windows 7 users, the new iMac doesn't play nice without a few extra driver downloads. Your iMac screen will simply go blank midway through the installation. We spent a fair amount of time diagnosing the fault, which turned out to be a missing video driver. Driver disorder Further investigation revealed that we had to download the correct driver (100 MB approximately) from Apple's website and unzip it to a USB pen drive, which has to be left plugged in during installation.
Windows will search through all available devices and then install the driver, after which you'll be good to go. After installation, you'll also need to install an update to the Windows Boot Camp utility (another 380 MB download) even though official instructions say nothing of the sort. Without the new version, you won't be able to use the Magic Mouse. However, the update caused severe colour banding on screen as the colour depth dropped from 32 bit to 16 bit. So we had to roll back the graphics driver.
This is quite a hassle considering Boot Camp has worked so smoothly on previous Apple machines. All we're unhappy about is the absence of instructions that might have prepared us for this ordeal. The new iMac is not ready for Windows 7, but if this is not what you're buying a Mac for, there's no need to worry.

Performance

Similarly, our audio and video compression tasks took 1 min 7 sec and 47 sec respectively, which are pretty respectable scores. You'll be able to play even fairly recent games at low settings, but don't expect earth-shattering frames at the screen's native 2560 x 1440 with the default graphics card.

How to Reduce Stress

Stress is a big challenge in life nowadays.
The sources of stress are many and the helpful ways to reduce stress are also plentiful.
Common symptoms of stress include skin problems, stomach ulcers, high blood pressure, fatigue, insomnia and frustration.

We don't need to set a time to reduce stress, we need to incorporate some strategies in our daily life routine to prevent stress and reduce its effect on the body.

Here are 11 simple steps we can easily take to reduce stress:

1. Define your goals: we must define our life goals and begin to achieve these goals; this action will support us against stress because we will feel that we know what our life purpose is and why, and that we control our own lives.

2. Take control of your diet: we can use simple ways in our diet plans to reduce stress by avoiding some stimulants such as coffee, alcohol, tea and sugar and we can use chamomile tea as an alternative because of its calming and relaxing effect.
We need to eat slowly in a calm environment to allow our digestive system to work well.
We can use honey as an alternative to sugar but in small amounts (one or two spoonfuls per day).

3. Take hot baths regularly: after a very busy day or when we feel that we need to relax (I do this three times a week).
You can take a hot bath by sitting in warm to hot water and the water level should be above the waist, using lavender oil can also enhance this relaxing experience.

4. Aromatherapy: in the office you can use aromatherapy to relax and avoid stress.
One of the best ways is to use lavender oil on a source of heat and take in the scent; this is a great way to relax during the day when you need it the most.

5. Exercise: This is one of the important things you can do which will reduce stress and bring happiness.
When we exercise, our brains release substances which bring feelings of happiness and relaxation; we need engage in some exercise regularly such as walking, dancing or swimming.

6. Breathing techniques: Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi all use deep breathing techniques.
To meditate, simply sit with closed eyes and concentrate on your breathing.
Breathing deeply regularly is great for health and from there, you can learn various other breathing techniques to gain enhanced benefits.

7. Relaxation techniques and self hypnotherapy: we can easily do this after the hot bath to relax even more, simply sit or lie down in a comfortable place with your eyes closed, imagine there is a spot light above your head and concentrate on it, then concentrate on your body part by part and try to relax the body and feel the relaxation deepening -- you can also use a self hypnotherapy audio tape to help in this process.

8. Massage: this is a great way to reduce stress, I do this when other ways fail, I feel better after receiving a massage.
You can get a professional massage or you can simply ask your partner to massage you.

9. Spiritual healing: prayers and the act of helping others are very important components for happiness and stress reduction.
You will feel calmer and have a sense of inner peace.

10. Talking through your problems: talking about your feelings acts as a releasing mechanism and you will soon find that talking about your problems with your partner or best friend may help the solution to the problem come to light and will help to release blocked emotions.

11. Multivitamins: I take a Vitamin B complex regularly to decrease stress and this has been a great help in my stress reduction.

I hope that you find these suggestions helpful, my hope in sharing this information with you is that you can benefit from it.

Happy MAHASHIVARATRI

Shiva rathri is one of the most auspicious vratas for the devotees of Lord shiva. The purANas explain the grand significance of this vrata.

History of shivaratri

Once when everything in all the worlds got reduced into Lord shiva, in that darkness of nothing present, the mother pArvati worshipped Lord shiva in the Agamic way with great devotion. The parameshwar pleased by Her prayer blessed Her. She asked for the benefit of all the creatures that in future whoever worships the Lord on the shiva rAtri day with devotion, they should be blessed and should be given the ultimate liberation. The pashupati granted that showing way for all of us to get blessed easily.

When Brahma and Vishnu fought between themselves as "who is the greatest", Lord Shiva appeared before them as a pillar of fire. They were not able to find the starting and end of that pillar. This day is Thirukkaarthikai.(1)

Then Brahma and Mahavishnu repented for their mistake and prayed to Lord Shiva for forgiving their sin worshiping the shiva li.ngam which is the form of the flame. In the night of Shiva rathri Lord Shiva appeared before them and blessed them. Devotees pray the God throughout the night of Shiva rathri by performing Abisheka, chanting and other holy deeds.

Every month in Krishna paksha chathurdhasi (fourteenth moonday) is called masa Shiva rathri. The one that comes in the month of "Masi" (mid February to mid March) is called Maha Shiva rathri. This is considered as the most important vrata by the devotees.

There are many incidents told about the greatness of this day. Once a hunter in a jungle after searching throughout the jungle, was quite tired and could not get any animal. In the nightfall a tiger started chasing him. to escape from that he climbed a tree. That was a Bilva tree. The tiger sat under the tree waiting for him to come down. The hunter who sat on a branch of the tree was quite tense and didn't want to sleep. He was plucking the leaves and putting down as he was not able to be idle. Below the tree there was a Shiva lingam. The whole night went on like this. God was pleased with the Upavasa (hunger) and the Pooja the hunter and the tiger did even without knowledge. He is the peak of the grace. He gave the hunter and the tiger "Moksha".

In a Shiva temple on a Maha Shiva rathri day the lamp kept in the altar was very dim. That time a mouse which came take its prey touched the flame. Due to the heat it moved its head immediately. In the process it kindled the lamp and the altar was illuminated well. Lord Shiva, pleased by this deed made the mouse Mahabali, the renowned asura king.

There are many incidents like this told in our Puraanas. If we do the vrata with pure devotion and love there can be no doubt about getting the Grace of the Almighty.

When is shivaratri observed

ska.ndha purANam describes about four shiva rAtris. The first one is nitya shivarAtri (daily shivarAtri - every night). The second one is the mAsa shivarAtri which is observed on the kR^iShNa paxa chaturdasi (fourteenth moonday on the moons diminishing phase). The third one is the mAga prathamAdi shivarAtri which is observed for the thirteen days starting from prathama titi in the month mAga (mAsi) and on the chaturdasi night the Lord is worshiped throughout the night.

The fourth one is observed on the mAsi (mAga) month kR^iShNa paxa chaturdasi. This is the one observed in a widespread manner. It is also called mahA shivarAtri.

Way of observing shivaratri
Getting up early in the morning one meditates on the Infinitely Auspicious, ornated with thousands of splendid garlands, Who is in the form of the holy symbol of shiva(mahA li.ngam). Bathing and staying clean the worship of Lord shiva in the form of shiva li.ngam is done in the four jamas of the night (four equal time intervals of the night). (Note that the li.nga worship is explicitly mentioned for this vratam as this is the time the God out of Its grace for the benefit of pashus appeared in a formless-form that is a symbol (li.ngam) from Its true nature of formlessness.)