National Safety Council calls for nationwide ban on cellphone use while driving your vehicle

A number of states have already passed some form of ban on cellphone use while driving. The National Safety Council thinks that too many drivers are talking and texting while driving. The National Safety Council also says that laws that allow for handsfree cellphone use don’t make calling any safer.

The Council’s also seems to be taking specific aim at businesses, saying that calling while driving can increase costs and open up employers to liability. The cellphone industry, and the CTIA specifically, disagree with the Council’s assessment. The cellphone industry and the CTIA instead believe that safe and limited use of a cell phone when you’re behind the wheel is possible. They also believe that if someone is “driving irresponsibly because of cell phone use, they should be cited for that. And under current laws, they can be.”

Via: Engadget

The Volkswagen BlueSport’s turbocharged 2.0L diesel engine “returns fuel economy ratings of 35 mpg for city driving and 50 mpg on the highway, with an very low CO2 level of 113 g/km.” The BlueSport produes 177hp and 258 lb-ft of torque which propels the car from zero to 60 in 6.2 seconds. The car reaches a top speed of 140 mph. There is a 6 speed dual clutch gearbox. I took a Volkswagen GLI for a test drive a while back and the shifting of the transmission was a little twitchy. I hope the BlueSport feels different. I owned a Honda S2000 which had a much more fluid feel.

There are two additional features, an automatic stop-start system and regenerative braking which help boost fuel economy.

To keep the car’s weight below 2,600 pounds, VW used a manually operated canvas top as well as an aluminum hood and deck lid. The vehicle rides on 19-inch 10-spoke alloy wheels with 235/35ZR19 tires in front and 245/35ZR19s in the rear.

Cool tech inside the car includes a touchscreen interface, and an automatic climate control system. You can control the audio system, onboard computer, transmission and hands-free mobile phone from the steering wheel.

The Viliv X70 is powered by the Intel Atom Z520 Silverthorne 1.33GHz cpu with the SCH US15W chipset. The Viliv X70 has 1GB of memory, 8GB or 16GB SSD drive or you can get it with a 30GB or 60GB hard drive. I can see using this to view or listen to podcasts. I am currently using my phone, but the screen is too small.

The X70 comes with a 7 inch 1024×600 LCD swivel touchscreen, integrated support for WiMAX, WiFi, HSDPA, and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. It packs also SiRF Star III GPS chipset. The X70 has a SD/SDHC card slot and a 1.3 Megapixel webcam, stereo speaker and integrated microphone. It runs Windows XP or Linux.

I have been using a free FTP program called WinSCP for a while now. I used to use WS_FTP by IPSWITCH, but I found WinSCP and it works fine. WinSCP allow me to SFTP my files up and down from my server as well as download backups of my websites using SCP. Explanations of the protocols are below. One of my favorite features in WinSCP is that you can throttle the bandwidth on transfers. I don’t want to overload my server by downloading at the full speed of my cable connection.

SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)

Despite SSH in its name, it is designed to work over any reliable data stream, but WinSCP supports only operation over SSH, which is also by far its most common usage.

SFTP is operated over SSH, it is a secure protocol. In its basic functionally it is similar to old FTP, while having better designed sophisticated functionality.

SFTP is more platform independent, compared to both FTP and SCP.

SCP (Secure Copy Protocol)

SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) is mostly used with SSH-1. SCP is an older protocol but almost universally supported on Unix-like platforms as part of an SSH protocol suite. It is rarely supported on other platforms. SCP is a descendant of “rcp.”

The SCP protocol allows only file transfers in both directions. WinSCP offers other features, implemented using common shell commands including cd, ls, pwd, rm, ln, etc. WinSCP is unlike command line SCP clients (which allow only file transfers). Other SCP clients require full shell access and permission to execute other commands in addition to SCP. For access to non-UNIX servers it is necessary that the server have at least a UNIX-like shell.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

FTP is the oldest protocol of the three. FTP is the most widespread transfer protocol of today. FTP is insecure, sending all data (including passwords) unencrypted. Although there exists secure variants (FTP over SSL), they are not supported by WinSCP. Functionally it is inferior and not as secure as SFTP. FTP is less platform independent than later versions of SFTP, mainly in respect to directory listing.

Requirements:
WinSCP should run on any system running Windows 95 or later. WinSCP requires at most 10 megabyte of free disk space. There is a portable version that runs on a U3 Thumbdrive. You can store all of your website settings in an INI file and move it to a different computer.

WinSCP also runs on Linux platforms with Crossover 4.x or later is running. Crossover allows for a Windows program to run in a Linux platform.

I called Lenovo yesterday abour a problem with one of my customer’s laptops. Took me about 5 minutes to get through their phone system and get a human on the phone.

I gave the service person my customer’s information and explained the problem. The problem is that the laptop is overheating and blue screening. The fans aren’t kicking on. The laptop has 3 months left on the warranty. The service rep gave me an RMA number (return merchandise authorization), and said he would send out a box for the laptop so that it could be shipped back to them. The box arrived at my office the next day. Inside the box was a questionnaire on the parts that would be going back to Lenovo as well as a spot for the RMA number and computer type. I filled out the form and packaged up the laptop. Make sure that if you fill out a form like this that you keep a copy in case their is any questions later on. UPS was due to arrive later that afternoon. Not only did Lenovo pay to ship the box to my office, they also paid for the shipping to send the laptop to Lenovo’s service center. They are also paying to have the laptop shipped back to my office for my customer. This is great service. I have done many RMA’s for computer components and this has been one of the easier ones.

The service phone number for Lenovo by the way is 1-800-426-7378.