reflective

After spending a relatively stressful weekend in St. Louis trying to find the perfect wedding dress, UCLA sociology Ph.D. candidate Kjerstin Gruys decided on the flight back to L.A.--which could arguably be dubbed the city of mirrors--that it was time for something drastic: a year without them.

This was back in March, and her "mirror, mirror...OFF the wall" project would include the six months leading up to (and the six months following) her October wedding.

So far so good, according to Gruys' near-daily blog posts. But as someone with only a tiny bathroom mirror … Read more

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of the most significant applications of information technology to modern business practice. CRM hasn't replaced critical personal contacts but enabled and enhanced them. NCH Software is leveling the playing field for CRM database systems with its Reflect CRM technology, a multiuser CRM package that happens to be free. It can track customer information, accounts, leads, and more. It can import and export data as CSV files, too, and is compatible with other programs, databases, and files, including PDFs.

Reflect CRM Free is a compact download that installs quickly. The setup wizard prompted us … Read more

What's light green, sprayed on top of asphalt, and lowers the temperature of parking lots by 30 degrees? If you went to school at Robert L. Duffy school in Phoenix, you'd know the answer.

Late last month, the charter school became the testing ground for "green asphalt," a concrete-based reflective covering designed to make asphalt surfaces cooler and more durable.

Phoenix-based Emerald Cities installed the coating at the school to demonstrate the viability of the technology to city leaders and contractors, company CEO Sheri Roese said yesterday.

As part of its efforts to be carbon neutral, … Read more

For the record: I hate reflective screens.

In the past, I've written about how I hate them on laptops. And, judging from the reader comments, many of you hate them as well. Unfortunately, it seems like our pleas are falling on deaf ears. Matte screens are becoming harder to find on laptops: you usually have to search out "business" models, which are sometimes lean on consumer-friendly features and pricing. So, if you're not in a totally darkened environment, you're left staring at your own reflection in the screen, instead of at your work.

Now the trend is extending to TVs, as well. Once upon a time, plasma screens had reflective glass, while LCD screens had matte finishes. But as LCD continues to take market share from plasma, the LCD TV manufacturers are struggling to distinguish their products from one another in the marketplace. And with the spec sheets becoming ever more identical--1080p resolution, LED backlighting, 240Hz refresh rate, zillion-to-one contrast ratio--design becomes more important than ever. In addition to ever thinner panels, shiny, glossy, highly reflective screens are becoming the norm in LCD land.

The cynic in me still thinks the manufacturers really prefer the glossy reflective screens because they "pop" on the showroom floor at Best Buy--shoppers eyes are drawn to shiny baubles, even if they're $3,000 big-screen TVs. But, to be fair, the glossy screens aren't entirely cosmetic. Manufacturers claim that the glossy screens preserve black levels by focusing the reflections rather than scattering them in a more diffuse pattern. So, you'll see the light from a window will only take up that much space on the screen, instead of having the larger discolored white blob you'd see on a matte screen.

While that's certainly true, the fact is that I find the diffuse matte reflection to be much less objectionable than seeing a mirror image of my living room staring back at me. On the example above, note the reflection on the screen on the left completely obscures Maggie Gyllenhaal's image; the same window reflection on the upper corner of the TV on the right is, to my eye, much easier to tolerate. … Read more

Backing up your computer shouldn't be a tedious task. Macrium Reflect Free Edition makes file backup incredibly easy thanks to its intuitive user interface and helpful wizards.

Installing the program did confuse us a bit, because although it's a free program, it refers to purchasing the program, and you're given a confirmation number. On top of that, the program recommends that you view the online tutorials before getting started, but you might have some trouble deciphering them unless you speak Italian. Luckily, the built-in Help menu is more than adequate and written in English. The user interface … Read more

Macrium Reflect is a program that offers external backup capabilities. It worked very well for us, but novice users might be a little lost with some of the more detailed file settings.

The user interface uses colorful command buttons and tabs for easy navigation. We did find a misspelling, which for a paid program, is a pet peeve of ours. But beyond that, we found it extremely easy to add files using the built-in wizard. From there, we were able to select the file types to include or exclude, as well as select the backup location, including a hard disk, … Read more

I'm in the market for a new laptop, and I was immediately drawn to the Dell XPS M1330 the minute it appeared in the CNET Labs last week. It's easily one of the slickest-looking Windows laptops I've seen in a long time, and despite its ultraportable size, it still packs all the serious computing horsepower and features I'm looking for, including a slot-loading DVD burner, HDMI output, and a built-in flash media reader. I was seriously ready to budget out $2,000 for this thing--until I noticed the screen. … Read more