facility

Gym rat

Gyms and health clubs are complex businesses, with memberships, controlled access, retail functions, equipment, personal trainers, and much more. Gym Master Lite is a program that can help you manage all of these various aspects of your business, provided you want to take the time to learn how to use it. Although the program is jam-packed with features, its layout is less than intuitive.

The program's interface isn't particularly attractive, with a boxy, somewhat dated look. A navigation bar down the left side gives quick access to the Main Menu, Todo List, Find Member, Last Visitors, Billing, Reports, … Read more

Foxconn looking into $12 billion Brazil investment

Foxconn Technology Group, the company responsible for the manufacturing of Apple's iPod, iPhone, and iPad, is said to be in talks with Brazil to invest $12 billion over the next five to six years for building new manufacturing facilities within its borders.

The plans, reported by Reuters today, were unveiled by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff while on a visit to Beijing. Rousseff told reporters there that Foxconn was looking to "invest" in the country in the form of new manufacturing facilities, creating jobs, and providing the Brazilian government with additional tax revenue.

The details of those plans, … Read more

Appointment keeper

Business Appointment Manager (BAM) from Business Management Systems is a multiuser, network-capable business software and database suite that bundles scheduling, billing, customer contact, and a variety of reporting tools. The program can help coordinate appointments and other important events and actions, everything from ordering supplies and reserving conference rooms to sales, client meetings, and purchasing, helping to reduce wasteful duplication and conflicts like double-booking. It also integrates billing, customer relations, and business-planning tools, all in one comprehensive, shared interface.

When you install BAM, you have the option of installing the full program, which includes SQL Server components, or just the … Read more

Wallops Flight Facility, NASA's hidden launch shop

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va.--Imagine a football stadium floating high in the sky, enclosed in material not much thicker than a sandwich bag.

Take away the physical part of the football field, but leave the volume, and you get a sense of the size of the high-altitude balloons that NASA uses to conduct scientific experiments.

Those balloons, as well as the design and manufacture of sub-orbital rockets and the launching into space of government satellites, are among the mandates of the Wallops Flight Facility, a NASA center based here on the Atlantic coast about 160 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. … Read more

Harnessing a star's power for clean energy

LIVERMORE, Calif.--Think clean energy is a fantasy? What if the power of a star was applied to the problem?

That's the approach being explored at the National Ignition Facility, a huge-scale experiment in laser fusion based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory here. Scientists are looking at NIF as a potential key to producing large amounts of carbon-free power.

It's not known if the system will ever bear the kind of fruit the scientists and administrators who run NIF would like. Still, the facility is a scientific wonder that can transform a single laser beam no wider … Read more

Nation prepares for deadly bat virus

Bird flu, swine flu, anthrax; and now add Hendra--a lethal virus that resides in bat urine and horse spit--to the ever increasing list of barnyard threats.

The U.S. and other countries are investing in Hendra virus research because they fear it may be used in biological warfare, Dr. Peter Reid told horse owners and "bat carers" at the Queensland Horse Council Hendra virus conference last week. And Dr. Reid should know--he was the veterinarian involved in the first known Hendra outbreak, which killed prominent Queensland horse trainer Vic Rail and 14 of his horses in 1994.… Read more

Audio Slideshow: Livermore Labs unveils super laser

A correction was made to this story. See below for details.

LIVERMORE, Calif.--The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a blast--literally.

I was lucky enough to join the few thousand people who were allowed Saturday to tour the world's largest laser system, which is located in this bucolic valley about an hour's drive from San Francisco.

The $3.5 billion facility was dedicated Friday by a host of dignitaries, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But family members and friends of lab employees were allowed to tour the NIF last weekend, many of whom started … Read more

Intel to close plants, up to 6,000 workers affected

Updated at 3:00 p.m. PST with comments from an Intel spokesperson.

Intel said on Wednesday it will close chip plants to align its manufacturing capacity to current market conditions. Between 5,000 and 6,000 employees will be affected.

The world's largest chipmaker will halt production at five "older" factories.

The company plans to close two existing assembly test facilities in Penang, Malaysia, and one in Cavite, Philippines, and will halt production at Fab 20, an older 200mm wafer fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Ore., Intel said. Additionally, wafer production operations will end at the D2 … Read more

AMD walks fine line with $3 billion NY plant

Update at 2:15 p.m. PDT: Adds comments from AMD spokesperson.

Advanced Micro Devices is in a bind. The chipmaker is caught between the dire need to reduce manufacturing capacity on its books with pressure to build a $3 billion plant in New York state.

AMD's chairman Hector Ruiz is touring the Malta, New York site this week-- referred to as the Luther Forest Technology Campus--as Saratoga County installs a $79 million water pipeline that will service the facility. Moreover, this week, the town of Malta voted unanimously to approve plans for the plant, according to the … Read more