Month: May 2007

External DVD Burner: Useful For Carrying From Place To Place

An external DVD burner is a portable burner that is able to read, write as well as rewrite CDs as well as DVDs in order to store or share information. They are different to internal DVD burners in that they can be taken from place to place and, be used on different computers as well as uses an external power source.

The external DVD burner can perform different functions depending on the accompanying software and, some of the salient features that they have include making photo discs, making read-only music or audio CDs, burning home movies, creating back-up copies of media library and, playing DVD movies or CDS, to name but a few uses of the DVD burner.

Consider The Ports

Before one selects an external DVD burner, one needs to consider the ports to which they are to be attached and, check whether the computer has a USB 2.0 or 1.1 or FireWire port and, then choose the DVD burner to suit the port. USB 1.1 is very slow and, one can add ports for a reasonable cost. To gauge how good or bad the external DVD burner is, one would need to check its ability to copy to dual layer discs and, ascertain whether they are compatible with popular DVD copying software.

The external DVD burner should have burning speeds that should be good enough to support normal usage and, the speed may also depend on the type of blank media that is used for reading/writing and rewriting information. One should also consider the external DVD burner s ranking, which would depend on how fast product manufacturers respond to enquiries about their product and, should also take into account help/support methods available.

Of course, there are many manufacturers of the external DVD burner and Sony has a good external DVD burner that is especially useful for converting old VHS tapes onto a DVD. With a two-inch LCD, one can see what is being recorded and, also has the ability to let users make rough stop-and-start edits and, one can also record from a VCR. For approximately US$260, it is not a bad buy.

Plextor has an external DVD burner that it claims is the most diminutive of its kind and which targets ultraportable laptop owners that otherwise tend to feature bulky external drives. In addition, it consumes very little power when burning DVDs and thus saves on battery power usage.

Density of Ethanol: Keep a Close Eye on Density and Water Content

Ethanol, in its diluted and aqueous solution form has a sweet flavor while as a concentrated solution it has a burning taste. The melting point of ethanol is -114.1 degrees centigrade and the density of ethanol is 0.789 g/ml. at twenty degrees centigrade. Ethanol that is derived from the fermentation process has varied degrees of concentration that ranges from a few percent to approximately 14 percent and above this percentage it destroys the zymase enzyme and therefore there is no more fermentation possible.

Ethanol Should Not Contain Water

Producers of ethanol need to keep tabs on the density of ethanol as well as water content of the ethanol stream to ensure quality. In case the ethanol contains significant quantities of water and even five percent would qualify as a significant amount, it would, through its molecular structure, act more like water and less like ethanol especially when mixed with petrol that is a hydrocarbon solution. Wet ethanol can be mixed with petrol and upon mixing, the ethanol will split from the petrol and settle at the bottom of the container and the petrol will rise to the top.

To measure the density of ethanol one may use an alcohol monitoring system from Anton Paar which is very accurate density transducer that can measure density non-stop as well as read the percentage of water and also concentration of alcohol. This monitoring of density of ethanol system comprises of a density transducer as well as an MPDS evaluation unit and it gives highly accurate as well as reliable readings that help in ensuring quality control as well as monitoring of the product.

Ethanol has a greater energy density as compared with methanol and its density is less than that of water. The energy density of ethanol is not as much as that of gasoline and is merely 64 percent and so takes one hundred and fifty times the amount of ethanol to give the same amount of energy as would be produced by gasoline. This may result in higher prices being paid for ethanol as compared to gasoline prices. Put realistically, one would require four gallons of ethanol to conserve one gallon of gasoline. But, because the energy density of ethanol is less per gallon and one requires one hundred and fifty percent more ethanol, it actually works out to six gallons of ethanol instead of four.