So, what to make of the new MacBook Air just introduced by Steve Jobs last week? Is it just a jazzed up ipad or a more serious laptop? Perhaps at $1000 an overpriced netbook, although Jobs would apparently spit on more than your tie if he heard you suggest that.

Bench test results for the two new Air models are starting to arrive and they seem to be saying that size does matter. In this case 2 inches of extra screen seems to change a lot of things. The 11 inch version of Air now sells for $1000 which is down $500 from the previous Air model. The more powerful 13.5 inch screen sized model sells for $1300 but packs quite a bit more tech wallop for the extra 300 bucks.

The 13 incher is large enough to sport a full size keyboard of Apple feel good keys. The screen is a very sharp high res 1366-by-768 pixels vs. only 1024-by-768 pixels for most netbooks. Reports say that the 11 inch screen version is better than a netbook but is still a strain on the old eyeballs to do serious work on for a long period of time. The Air is also almost noiseless in its operation. It’s flash memory also makes for very fast boot ups and application start up.

The Air is only about half the weight of a MacBook Pro but you’re only talking about 2 pounds difference here folks. Neither of the Air models pack the processor horsepower of the Pro … but that may not be so important to those who don’t want to create video and do other stand alone stuff that a primary workhorse computer does.

The Air is packaged in a more durable aluminum shell than the previous one and possesses wickedly fast solid state flash memory in place of a hard drive. It’s also suppose to able to run Windows but without a disc I guess it’s a bit tricky to get installed.

Apple it appears seems to be treading delicately on the user niches here. They don’t want the Air to impede ipad sales or Pro sales. The 11 inch Air runs faster than an ipad but only about 60% as fast as a Pro. A Pro will also out leg the 13 Inch Air by a margin of 20% or so. Apple makes a lot of money selling hardware for a lot more than their competitors do and so they need to be careful not cannibalize their upper end products for these new cheaper products.

So who is the Air aimed at? This seems to be Apple’s pecking order. The ipad is cool for low end Internet cruising. The 11 inch Air is pricey competition for netbooks. The 13 inch Air is aimed as laptop replacements for medium duty applications, which leaves the Pro for higher end power users.

Finally golfers get a break this year and can have some fun with this Halloween costume idea compliments of Tiger Woods. A “Cheetah Woods” visor with a crazy little golf club and you’re all set for the 19th. hole Halloween party. Your better half may like to accompany you in a Lindsay Lohan prison outfit.

That’s pretty cool for a start but it gets better. The Avitar movie made pony tails popular again so if you don’t want to go way cool and pop the cash for the tall green suit then just get a fake hipster length pony tail and throw on any old rag around the house … and you’re all set to party.

Use your imagination a bit and you can probably come up with a great gag costume to skew the Jet Blue attendant Steven Slater who just pleaded guilt in court and has to get some mental health help.

If you really want to make the scene, grab a hard hat and dirty jump suit and pretend you’re a BP oil worker. Some oily goggles and a BP logo would add a nice touch.

Star Wars is celebrating its 20th. anniversary this year so Darth Vader and Princess Leia will be pretty popular around town. Be on super high alert though if you see the princess carrying a little bag with her.

For a political statement you may want to grab a top hat and pretend you’re going to a Tea Party … or how about a Sarah Palin look alike in a swim suit if you have the figure for it. Failing that, just put on a set of glasses and hold up a picture of a grizzly bear and play guess who.

A Brent Favre Halloween costume would probably be pretty interesting. Hmmm. Be careful though if you plan to carry an iphone with a naughty picture for authenticity. Make sure that only that special someone gets to see it.

So we have traveled now all the way from kooky to funky. A Lady Gaga meat dress. Now that’s funky. Check things out with your butcher when designing your costume to ensure you have the funkiest meat going and oh yes …  take some other clothes with you just in case there’s a dog or two at the party.

In spite of all these great Halloween costume ideas my personal favorite is a simple diaper and a baby bottle. It gets lots of attention, everyone wants to play with the baby, and there’s always a drink nearby. Play it safe and make sure the baby’s bottle doesn’t have any of that BPA stuff in it.

Have fun at your Halloween bash wearing any Halloween costume you can imagine.

Anyone who has taken C.P.R. training knows how difficult and tiring the procedure can be … even when practicing on a dummy under ideal circumstances. In an emergency and under stress a lot of people who received classroom training for C.P.R. admitted they just couldn’t cope.

Gradually the rules of C.P.R were relaxed a bit from the clear airway, breathing, compression cycle to just start pumping on the chest regardless of your training. Feedback from people who had used C.P.R in real life do or die situations told the professionals that some were reluctant to breathe into a stranger’s mouth whom might be in cardiac arrest.

Time is of the essence when someone goes into arrest outside of  hospital, and those who do not get any help have about a 95% chance of dying.

That reluctance to do C.P.R could be costing lives reasoned the experts so they started telling their C.P.R classes to just do chest compressions in an emergency. Data from those episodes now indicate that not only is the simpler chest compression method effective, but that it is actually better than the C.P.R routine because it gets blood flowing to the heart and brain quicker.

The 30 seconds or so that was being taken before at the beginning to check the air way and to breathe into the victim’s mouth has now been found to be very very critical to the outcome, and that the time is better spent on doing chest compressions on the middle of the chest.

A person in cardiac arrest has about a 15% chance of survival if they get chest compressions right away … and better than a 50% chance if they get support from an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) shortly after the chest compressions get started.

A lot of the heart health agencies in the world have started telling  people today to skip the breathing cycle for suspected cardiac cases and to start chest compressions at a rate of about 100 per minute as quick as they can, and to make a 911 call for assistance. The odds of survival increase fourfold when compressions are started immediately.

For infants and children who have stopped breathing and are unlikely to be having a heart attack, normal C.P.R is still being recommended but there will be changes in the training that C.P.R classes receive.

The recommendations for chest compressions also emphasize that the rescue person should not be afraid to press too hard and possibly risk breaking the victim’s ribs. Better broken ribs than a dead patient is the thinking.

The quality of the chest compressions and their effectiveness is directly related to the amount of pressure applied. In an adult, the chest should be compressed about 2 inches and in a younger person about 1.5 inches.

Did you also know that there are revival techniques you can use on your dog or favorite pet if they stop breathing?

Well it’s not the Verizon iphone announcement people have been waiting for, but today Apple and Verizon did say that a WiFi only version of the ipad would start selling on Verizon before the end of the month.

The 3G version of ipad  is still under an exclusive agreement with AT&T prohibiting sale of it  on other carriers so Verizon and Apple have crafted a deal to get around that problem. A WiFi only ipad combined with Verizon’s MiFi 2200 hot spot device will give the WiFi ipad 3G connectivity on Verizon … plus up to 4 other user devices can also share the hot spot.

Bundled packages for a WiFi ipad plus MiFi modem will retail on Verizon for:
- 16GB ipad + MiFi: $629.99
- 32GB ipad + MiFi: $729.99
- 64GB ipad + MiFi: $829.99

Verizon is packaging the MiFi with a 1GB monthly plan for $20  which  sandwiches itself  between the two plans AT&T offers 3G ipad users. A 200MB plan for $15 and a 2GB plan for $25.

The Verizon bundle means you have two things to carry around instead of just one … but the hot spot thingy is only about the size of a pack of cigarettes and by offering connectivity to the user’s other Wifi gear from 30 to 40 feet away, that may make it a good trade off.

Batteries are another consideration …. two packs instead of one. Tests have indicated that a battery powered WiFi ipad running on a 3G modem can stay connected for up to 8 hours on one charge where as the MiFi modem supporting 4 connections can only stay online for about 90 minutes on a charge.

There has been a flurry of announcements lately from other manufacturers bringing out their versions of a tablet pc. Which one is the best tablet pc? Can anyone knock Apple’s ipad off its pedestal? Stay tuned. The market will have to sort these things out over time.

The European Medicine Agency (EMA) has been investigating reports that suggested there may be a connection between the Pandemrix vaccine used in 2009 for H1N1 influenza protection and the higher incidences of Narcolepsy that followed.

The agency said they have not found any linkage yet …  but that it is a complex situation and they need another 3 to 6 months to examine the possibilities.

A person suffering from Narcolepsy can fall asleep at any time with no warning, so it has far more implications than a regular sleep disorder where a person may have trouble getting sufficient sleep and becomes too tired to function. Narcolepsy is a chronic problem with the brain that displays an inability to control normal sleep and awake cycles.

The European Medicine Agency (EMA) has had over 80 reports submitted to it from various European countries where the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix made by British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has been used since 2009. The reports were submitted by health care professionals who suggested there might be a link to the vaccine for their patients ranging in age from 4 to 52.

The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) issued a statement saying, “The committee concluded that the available evidence was insufficient to determine whether there is any link between Pandemrix and reports of Narcolepsy, and that further studies were necessary to fully understand this issue”.

In a person suffering from Narcolepsy the REM sleep or deep sleep cycle that occurs in most people after they’ve been asleep for a period of time, happens all of a sudden. They go from a fully conscious state into a deep REM sleep in a matter of seconds. It can last for a few minutes to an hour or more.

It is a very dangerous and debilitating form of sleep because the person could be driving a car or operating a machine and just nod off. There’s even cases where people have fallen to sleep while having sex. Not all women that have had that happen would likely agree though that their partner was Narcoleptic.

Narcolepsy consists of more things than just a person falling to sleep involuntarily. They can experience muscle weakness while awake. A condition called cataplexy, which can also be an indicator for an upcoming sleep attack. They can experience nightmares while falling to sleep … even muscle paralysis.

The disease is hard to diagnose and the patient must undergo testing at a sleep clinic to examine their sleep cycles and REM sleep patterns. There is no cure. Changes in lifestyle and certain medications can relieve or reduce symptoms in some people depending on the severity.

The Nokia C7 is the second Nokia product to be based on its new Symbian 3 OS software platform. It’s thin super sleek stainless steel and glass packaging is designed for social networking types and  incorporates a 3.5 inch (640×360 pixel) touch screen, and it can update facebook and twitter feeds directly on screen.

It also has HD 720p video TV playback, GPS, and HTML email support. Ovi Mail, Yahoo Mail,  and Hotmail account holders have one touch access. A micro USB connector with charging, and Bluetooth 3 is also part of the well thought out package that offers a lot of the features of its more aptly equipped N8 brother which sells for about $125 more. App downloads are available through the Ovi store.

It utilizes popular audio codecs like MP3, WMA, and AAC amongst others.

To round out the techie stuff, you can listen to the built in stereo FM radio for a long time with a 1200mAh Li-Ion battery backing everything up … and oh yes you get 8Gb of memory built in, with up to 32Gb available through micro SD cards. The C7 comes in two versions that can run either on GSM or CDMA based networks.

Nokia’s latest smartphone also packs a 8 megapixel camera. The HSDPA Cat9 wireless connection standard the Nokia C7 uses maxes out at 10.2 Mbps.

Nokia isn’t the world’s largest wireless phone manufacturer for nothing … and the C7 packs quite a techie wallop for the price. What about the price you ask? It retails for about $450 U.S. but can probably be bought for less through certain carriers and other rebate schemes.

You can find a nice little app here that will download videos from Youtube and other video sharing providers.

For the first time a study has attached a dollar figure to what obese workers cost industry in terms of lost productivity, medical costs, and absenteeism on an annual basis.

The analysis done by Duke-National University of Singapore has estimated the cost at a staggering  $74 billion … or enough money to hire another 1.8 million workers a year based on the average industrial wage of $42,000 paid in the U.S.

Their calculations concluded that the average per capita cost for a man with a BMI over 40 was $15,500 per year, and for a woman with the same BMI almost $17,000. A person of normal weight costs the employer about $10,000.

The study also made one very important observation and that is that the loss in employee productivity actually exceeds the employer’s health care costs.

It has not been known till now exactly how much obese related health problems were affecting the workplace. The study also made no mention about how much the obese public sector worker was costing the taxpayer … but with an average salary now much higher than private industry, the per capita costs for them must also be higher than these.

The study suggested that with these high costs now identified that employers might want to consider the benefits of getting their employees involved in weight management and other wellness type programs.

If you are an overweight employee and want to impress your employer with your leadership skills and ability to take control of the situation, then you may want to take a look at this weight management program and find out how it can help you.

Verizon iphone rumors continued to gain new substance today when Verizon announced its new 4G network will be up and running near the end of this year … and initially will give about 110 million Americans access.

Verizon president Lowell McAdam said that 38 cities and 60 airports would be covered by the 4G service when it starts up, and he expected expansion of the network to cover all the U.S. by 2013. LTE will also provide better coverage than existing 3G and can transmit thorough buildings and other objects easier.

The new 4G wireless standard that’s being adopted by many of the world’s telecom providers is called Long Term Evolution, or LTE for short. The fourth generation 4G standard will be 10 times faster than 3G giving upload speeds of  2-5 Mbps, and download speeds of 5-12 Mbps.

Unlike Verizon’s present 3G CDMA based network, the new 4G LTE broadband highway will allow smartphone users to roam the Internet and talk at the same time. Apple’s iphone chose the AT&T GSM network in 2007 because it had this feature that  CDMA couldn’t match.

Unlike 3G networks which have suffered system overloads in the past when Apple’s iphone was bought by the masses … the new LTE network claim is that it will not slow down and become overloaded by a spike in the number of users.

With Verizon’s announcement of the imminent start-up of  a 4G LTE network comes word that Qualcomm is going to provide Apple’s iphone with a chip so it can operate over the new network, and not on CDMA based technology that was previously thought.

With other carriers world-wide building 4G LTE networks this would give the iphone a huge market and be convenient to travelers. Some are now speculating that Apple will announce a Verizon version of the iphone at the upcoming CES show.

A 5 year study done by the Arizona Department of Health Services has concluded that simple is best when it comes to keeping cardiac arrest patients alive until professional help arrives.

Bystanders witnessing an adult  going into cardiac arrest should start doing chest compressions immediately if an automated  defibrillulator isn’t available. Mouth to mouth breathing as taught in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) practice has been found not to be as effective as just chest pumps.

CPR is still recommended for young children who have quit breathing, because the problem is far more likely to be respiratory than cardiac related.

In addition CPR is more complicated for people to apply and has a perceived health risk associated with it due to mouth to  mouth contact with a stranger. Only  about a third of cardiac arrest patients receive CPR and the health risk is thought to be a big reason why.

Over 90% of people that go into cardiac arrest outside a hospital don’t survive. In 2008 a modified form of CPR started to be taught that consisted of just rapid chest compressions at a rate of about 100 per minute. This technique has been found to be more effective than the old CPR because it is much easier for people to do … and therefore there are more people to do it.

The mouth to mouth CPR method has been found to reduce the flow of blood to the heart when compared to chest pumping because the chest compressions get interrupted with the breathing into the mouth. The critical thing is to keep the heart muscle alive by getting oxygenated blood to it and the chest pumps alone keep the blood flowing and gets enough air into the lungs to  make this happen.

The study found that cardiac arrest patients receiving only chest compressions had about a 5% better survival rate than those receiving CPR with mouth to mouth breathing.

Anyone who uses a laptop a lot probably notices that the little fan underneath really blows hot hot air once the machine has been on for a while. If you monitor the internal temperature of the CPU inside using one of the laptop’s utilities you can see it reaches temperatures in the 50 – 60 degree celsius range.

One of the questions now being asked … is a laptop too hot to put on your lap? One observation by a doctor treating someone for an overheated lap due to laptop exposure says a condition called  “Toasted Skin Syndrome” can result.

While not hot enough to actually burn you, there’s enough heat to damage your skin if you leave the machine in one spot too long. Some say that in theory skin cancer could result from prolonged exposure this way.

They suggest if it feels too hot then it probably is too hot to leave it on your lap. Get a desk or one those fan coolers if you want to use it on your lap.

Can  a laptop’s heat cause infertility in men? A man’s scrotum is external to his body because sperm must be kept cooler than body temperature to survive. Now its been found that a hot laptop sitting on the lap can increase a scrotum’s temperature as much as 35 degrees above the body’s normal 98.6 degrees.

Computer users can be a pretty nerdy bunch, but it’s hard to believe anyone could sit there with a laptop and do nothing about it while the seed for future generations gets roasted below. Now we know the real threat that global warming poses.