The Winter Holidays Are Great For Grand Canyon Air Tours

By: Susan Bissonnette

No matter what time of year you visit the Grand Canyon, the scenery is spectacular. However, winter is especially dramatic because the visibility is so much better due to the climate conditions.

The best way to fully appreciate the Park during the height of its beauty is from the air. You can choose to tour by plane or chopper and depart from Vegas or Tusayan in Arizona. 

You may be wondering which option is best when it comes to aerial tours of the Grand Canyon. For one thing, the tours by helicopter cost more. That's because each chopper only holds six passengers and the tours are more private. 

Heli v.s. Plane

Next, helicopters fly at a lower altitude than airplanes. This is more important at the West Rim (more on rims in a minute) where helis can fly below the edge and land at the bottom. Since they can't do that at the South Rim, the choice between plane and chopper there is not so critical. 

Then there's the issue of availability. Keep in mind, the helicopters only have room for six. Planes on the other hand can hold 19 people. For that reason, the chopper tours tend to fill up much quicker. Relatedly, if you are part of a large group, you might want to consider taking the plane because most or all of your party will fly together. 

The window seats offer fantastic views and they are available in both types of aircraft. It will cost you more though. Further, window seats are not guaranteed and are only given at time of check-in to those passengers who requested them during the online booking process. However, most people don't even know you can request a window seat, you it doesn't hurt to go ahead and ask for one. 

Window Seats

The weight of all the passengers has to be evenly distributed in a helicopter and that is why there is no guarantee you will get a window seat until everyone checks in on the day of the tour. That's not the case with airplane tours, and it is usually easier to get a window seat on one of those. Right now, window seats on helicopter tours cost $50 extra and those on airplane tours cost $10 extra. 

The aerial tours go to both rims of the canyon. The Grand Canyon has two destination points for tours, one is the South Rim and the other is the West Rim. Vegas is situated near the West Rim. You can get there by plane in a half an hour and by chopper in 45 minutes. You can't actually take a chopper from Vegas to the South Rim because it is too far away. Instead, you can go by airplane and get there in about an hour. The airplane tours at the South Rim originate at the Grand Canyon National Park Airport and tour the southern section of the park. 

The tours out of Las Vegas are available as air-only tours and landing tours. The air-only tours cost less. The landing tours are worth the money though because they let you experience the canyon up close while you have some fantastic adventures. One tour that I'm fond of is the West Rim airplane flight with optional Grand Canyon Skywalk. As for the South Rim, there's only the aerial and for the money it's excellent. 

Wrapping Up

Winter is simply a wonderful time to schedule an air tour of the Grand Canyon. There are several types of tours to choose from and you can depart from Las Vegas or Tusayan, Arizona. It is worth a special trip just to go to the canyon, but if you will be in Arizona or Vegas on vacation anyway, don't miss the chance to take an air tour. You will see many beautiful sights and make memories to last forever.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Energy-Saving & Environment Friendly Led Light Bulbs

by: Green Sim

Technological advancement is only possible through constant research and innovations. The latest example of such progress is the LED light bulb. Most research is carried out in order to find a way of improving the performance of an existing facility or to find a new product that will prove to be more economical and more efficient than the existing facility. 

Positive Aspects of LED Light Bulbs 

LED light bulbs have been developed to take the place of incandescent light bulbs or halogen light bulbs because they save energy, their efficiency is nearly double that of normal halogen bulbs and they do not have any harmful substance such as mercury. Moreover, these bulbs are environment-friendly because they can be recycled and they do not produce any heat. The durability and life expectancy of LED bulbs is in the region of 50,000 hours, which is much higher than that of the earlier bulbs. As such, once you have installed these LED light bulbs, you can forget about any cost of replacing them in the near future. 

Energy-Saving Feature 

The earlier incandescent or halogen light bulbs used to dissipate a large amount of energy by producing heat. This meant that the electricity bill was unnecessarily high. LED light bulbs have been created after a lot of research to eliminate the energy wasted due to heating, This has resulted in the creation of the latest innovative LED bulbs that do not produce any heat and consequently use much less energy to light up a room. 

Whereas the halogen bulbs were using 85% of the electrical energy to produce heat and only the 15% balance was being used to produce light, the LED light bulbs utilize 90% of the electrical energy to produce light. Halogen bulbs were fitted with filaments through which electricity was passed in order to produce light but these filaments heat up and consume nearly 90% of the electricity for heating. In the case of LED bulbs, which use light emitting diodes for producing light, almost the entire electrical energy is converted into light energy without wasting any energy for heating. By using LED bulbs you can save 80% of your previous electricity bill. By using the LED bulbs you can make sure that you are contributing towards lessening global warming because no heating from the bulb is being dissipated into the atmosphere. 

Cost Aspect 

Although LED bulbs are more expensive than the halogen bulbs, it is almost a one-time expense because these bulbs have a long life, which means they do not need to be changed for a long time. The extra initial cost will easily pay for itself over the years. Moreover, since these bulbs use so little energy, they are environment friendly and do not add to pollution. The LED light bulbs have standard bulb fitting features making them convenient to install and replace anywhere. 

GU10 LED Bulbs 

GU10 LED bulbs are the most common replacement LED bulbs. Though they are similar to the normal LED bulbs, they have many similar LED lights placed in one fitting. GU10 LED bulbs have a specific type of fastening and in most commonwealth countries such as the UK, New Zealand and Australia; the standard fastening is the bayonet mount. These types of LED light bulbs are mostly used in offices, shops, commercial spaces and in showrooms. They are high in style and efficiency.

Article Source:http://www.articlecity.com

Samsung tablet vs Apple ipad

By: Natasha Richards

The tablet world is booming with different products and offerings, and if you’re just now considering buying one of those incredible technological advances it could be pretty difficult to determine which one to choose. While you will find a million and one different options at any offered time, there are 2 or 3 genuine top of the line products which have demanded a lot of the attention from customers - the iPad and the Samsung line of tablets. Fighting it out in both the tablet world and also the smart phone world for the top spot, this heated competition has been nothing but a boost for consumers everywhere. As they look to incorporate increasingly more attributes and push technology further and further to win market share, we’re the real winners because we get the benefits of better tablets. Here’s a fast breakdown of two of the leading tablet manufacturer so that you can make the best decisions possible.

Samsung Tablet

One of many world’s most sophisticated producers of top of the range technology products, Samsung tablets - while fairly new to the market - have rapidly carved out a substantial part of the market. Running off of Google’s open source and amazingly well-known (in addition to powerful) Android operating system and mated to some of the best internal electrical parts available today, these machines are as fast and responsive as they are good to look at and utilize. You are able to tell that these machines have been designed to be the very best answer possible in the tablet space, and unlike the Ipad are available in several various sizes and configurations. Not as polished aesthetically as Apple products always are, these are nevertheless slick looking machines constructed from only the highest quality parts and components. App support is lagging behind Apple’s marketplace, but things should be able to pick-up considerably.

iPad

The indisputable king of the tablet world, there's nothing quite like the Apple ipad. The first of all commercially successful tablet, the iPad has enjoyed international success from the very first day it was launched, and continues to take advantage of that market share still these days. At this moment on the third generation of products, the iPad has favored slow evolutions instead of massive overhauls - the form factor is the same 10.1 inches and while the processors and memory modules have been completely beefed up a little bit the different between the first generation model and the current one is not that big. This really is not to imply that these products aren’t worth owning - if you are searching for the right tablet solution then millions and millions of individuals would inform you that no one does it like Apple. Providing models in variable hard drive sizes along with WiFi and cellular connectivity options, you’ll have the ability to appreciate all of the features of the iPad no matter where you are. Coming in having a significantly steep cost than nearly any other machine as well as having a locked down and closed operating system, they are really the only blemishes on this particular product. Apple has been recognized for a long time now as the leader in high-end technology products, and also the iPad shows that it doesn’t look like much is likely to change.

Article Source:
http://www.articlebiz.com

Update Drivers Automatically with Smart Driver Updater

By: Alexander Salikov

Drivers are some of the most important software on your computer. They allow the Windows operating system to communicate with hardware devices so that they can work correctly. Most hardware devices require drivers made by their manufacturers to be installed. When there is no driver installed on your computer for a device that requires it, the device simply will not work at all. In some cases, however, Windows automatically installs some very basic generic drivers of its own, allowing you to enjoy limited functionality only from the device. There are also certain types of hardware which do not require any additional drivers to be installed, since they are natively supported by the operating system. These include things like processors, hard disks and mass storage devices. However, just about every computer running Windows still needs third-party drivers for hardware such as printers, scanners, sound cards, graphics cards and various other devices.

While the importance of drivers should not be underestimated, neither should they simply be installed and ignored. When you upgrade your computer with, for example, a new graphics card, you may be tempted to install the drivers and any optional software from the CD or DVD that came with the device. This is what most users do, but it is not recommended. These drivers tend to be out of date, and out of date drivers are notorious for causing problems. Drivers which are old tend to cause compatibility problems and other issues. For example, if your graphics card has an outdated driver, some games released after that driver may experience problems or even refuse to work at all.

Most reputable hardware manufacturers release updated drivers on a fairly regular basis. These drivers may not only overcome compatibility issues with other hardware, software and newer editions of Windows; they may also address critical security flaws, fix bugs found in previous versions of the driver and sometimes even add new features. With the latest drivers installed for all hardware devices which require them, you can ensure that you are getting the most out of your computer.

Updating drivers is not necessarily a straightforward task, however, particularly if you want (which you should) to keep all drivers updated as soon as new releases come out. For novice users, installing hardware drivers manually can sometimes be risky as well and, in worst case scenarios, you can even end up with a completely unworkable computer. It also takes a great deal of time to manually keep all drivers up to date.

Fortunately, there is a reliable solution for this situation. Smart Driver Updater is a tool which automatically scans your computer's device manager and then checks online to see if there are any driver updates available. The program supports thousands of different devices, so you are not likely to have any component in your computer which it does not recognize. Once it finds the updated drivers, it will automatically download and install them. Minimal user interaction is needed thanks to the fact that this highly user-friendly software automates just about everything. Learn more at smartpctools.com/driver_updater.

Alexander Salikov is a developer of driver updater solutions. Smart Driver Updater provides the latest in automatic driver update technology making it easy for even the most novice computer user to manage their drivers.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com