Here at Infomania.co.uk we’re dedicated to digging out those bits of information that you’ve always wanted to know. One of the things that is really difficult to find out is how much energy domestic appliances actually use. You can usually…
Month: February 2009
Autopsy of a hairdryer
Here’s a hairdryer that got to the end of it’s useful life. As you can see they are really pretty simple. Basically all you’ve got is a heating element (behind the front grille) and a fan to blow air around…
Autopsy of a hard drive
Oops, I dropped my hard drive! Well to be truthful it had packed up so it wasn’t much of a loss. And it was only a 1Gb drive in the first place. As you can see below once the lid…
Autopsy of a cellphone
Here’s another in our line of technology autopsies – a GSM cellphone. This one came from a car boot sale but had no subscriber identity module (SIM) card so it wouldn’t work. The SIM card slotted into the back of…
So how does a TV antenna work?
Let’s take the example of a single-band UHF antenna. This looks a bit like a fish skeleton. The “bones” are arranged in pairs on opposite sides of a central “spine”. The bones near the front are shorter than those near…
So how do MP3 files work?
MP3 compressed sound files are finally becoming popular with online music stores, now that DRM is on the way out. Although MP3 compression is not quite as efficient as AAC and WMA it is good enough. The filesĀ are much smaller…
Updating the Philips DTR1500 Freeview box
The Philips DRT1500 set-top box is a great Freeview receiver but suffers one problem. It is only possible to add new channels to the channel lineup, not change those already tuned in. As channel names and numbers change the channel…
Digital cameras – why sensor size matters
A wide range of sensor sizes are used in cameras today. The size of the sensors is not related to their resolution (measured in megapixels). The smallest, 1/3.6″, has a tiny light-sensitive surface of only 4mm x 3mm. That is…
Photo fading – CDs, DVDs and prints
You might be surprised to know that you can’t even be sure the CDs you burned of this year’s digital photographs will last five years, let alone the inkjet prints you made.
Hello world!
Welcome to Infomania The website was previously running on a CMS (content management system) which proved to time consuming to manage. Hopefully the new platform will allow us to concentrate on postings, hints and tips on a more frequent basis.…