West Florida Components

ESD Protection Bins

Great deal alert! We’re parting with some of our static dissipative stacking bins – taking them out of service in our warehouse. There’s still plenty of life available in these bins so grab them while you can at 60% off the price of new bins.

The bins are perfect for storing all your sensitive electronic components and supplies. Also ideal for a warehouse environment where you need some ESD protection.

Here are the larger size bins: Large Anti-Static Stacking Bin

And here are the medium size bins: Medium Anti-Static Stacking Bin

The price on these bins when new are $26 for the medium size and over $30 for the large size. Both sizes are stackable with an open hopper on the front side for easy access to the contents of the storage bin. Limited availability – only about 200 left.

Whether you have an iPhone, Android or any other phone with a camera, here are our top 3 tips for getting better pictures with every shot.

1 – Composition:
Even with an entry level camera phone, remember the basic rules of composition when taking cell phone pictures. The rules of thirds is important: don’t place the subject of your photo in the middle of the frame. Place your subject in about 1/3 of the way into the frame. Also, if you are photographing people, line up your shot so that their eyes are about 1/3 from the top of the frame.

Another tip for composing great photos is to declutter your background. Taking a picture of your new car? Be sure your garbage can is put away. Compose your backgrounds to tell a story. A day at the beach can be told in pictures with the sun, sand and surf behind your subject. If you can, change your perspective – always shooting from a standing position will never get you the best angle for the best possible picture.

2- Blurry pictures:
The most common problem with digital pictures is that the camera is not held steady which often produces a blurry pic. Brace your arm on a table or against a wall. If there is no table or wall in site, tighten your arms against your body and hold your breath as you take the photo. Release your breath as you take the photo.

3 – Lighting:
Poor lighting can produce blurry pictures, poor color and shadows. Whether you have a flash or not on your camera phone, be sure to compose your pictures to get the best light possible. Stay away from bright sunlight – that will create pictures with harsh shadows. Instead, compose your pictures in the shade. While this will result in a darker photo, you will have a more even tone without the harsh shadows caused by direct sunlight.

If you are indoors, try to keep curtains open and the lights on – but keep your subject from being right under bright lights. It is better if the light is all around the room rather than right over your subject.

With these tips and some practice, you will be able to take great photos on your camera phone.

At West Florida Components, we get asked very often about wire bending radius. It is important to have guidelines when working with wire or cable in your projects, particularly projects that involve curves, ductwork and buildings. There are a few rules of thumb that come into play when you think about the bending radius of wire and cable. Following these rules will ensure that your wire and cable projects go off without a hitch!

Here is a chart to use: http://www.westfloridacomponents.com/wire-bending-radius.html

Ready to do some circuit work? Have any new projects that you need perf boards for? We received a shipment of copper plated circuit boards that are ‘nearly perfect’ – that is to say that they are identical to the regular perf boards that we normally stock except that they were poorly scored and separated by the manufacturer resulting in some unusable mounting holes.

We’re selling them in batches of 10 for $5.00. That’s only $0.50 for each perf board. It’s a great deal and they won’t last at that price.

Robert Noyce is being honored by Google for his contributions to the electronic components industry on what would have been his 84th birthday. To commemorate his birthday, Google’s homepage has a doodle which etches the Google logo onto a microchip, a technology that Noyce is credited with co-inventing.

Known as the Mayor of Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce was the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel and is credited along with Jack Kilby with the invention of the integrated circuit. He earned his nickname for the work he did as a mentor to youths aspiring to succeed in Silicon Valley and in fact was a mentor to Apple founder, Steve Jobs. Jobs was one of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs mentored by Noyce.

The holder of 15 patents related to the electronic components industry, Noyce was a major contributor to the industry and it is fitting that Google chose to honor him and his achievements.

We know there are tons of great deals out there today on Cyber Monday but we wanted to pass this one on to all our customers:

Get 8GB 204 Pin DDR3 1333 RAM Laptop Memory by G.SKILL for $24.99 including shipping!

If you have a laptop running 2 – 4GB of RAM right now, you can really give your notebook computer a major boost in performance.

Important: This will work only if you are currently running the 64-bit OS version of Windows – don’t waste your time if you are only running a 32-bit version. It won’t help you at all.

So how do you get this amazing deal? Go to newegg.com and search for F3-10600CL9D-8GBSQ. The item also qualifies for free shipping so the total is $24.99. This is a great deal!

Need a small and thin laptop for travel? How about a larger 15.6″ dual core for the home office? You can buy either right now for $349.

The lighter and smaller notebook computer is currently available from Dell is a Vostro V13. Some of the features and specifications are:

2.0GB, DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM, 1 DIMM320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, with Media, 32-bit, English
Microsoft® Office Starter
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor ULV SU7300 (3M Cache, 1.30 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
13.3 inch Wide Display HD (1366 x 768) with Anti-glare
6-cell 30WHr internal battery
Intel Pro/Wireless 5100 802.11b/g/n
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
1.3MP Webcam with Digital Mic for Win 7
Intel ® Centrino® 2 Processor
US 65W AC Adapter

If you want a larger screen, you can opt to purchase a Gateway from Best Buy. Here are some of the features on the Gateway notebook computer:

3.0GB, DDR3.0MHz SDRAM, 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
AMD Phenom™
15.6 inch High-definition widescreen TFT-LCD with Ultrabright technology (1366 x 768)
6-cell lithium-ion
Built-in 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector) Wireless-B+G+N
ATI Radeon HD 4250 Graphics
Webcam

Priced at just over $349 (plus shipping and sales tax) both are excellent deals for either home or small business use!

There have been a lot of news reports and discussions surrounding Facebook’s privacy policies. Of course, if you are worried about web privacy, canceling your Facebook account is an option, but since many other sites have joined the Facebook Connect network and are utilizing the site’s tools, you will need a Facebook account to be able to use these sites in the future. Plus, not everyone wants to give up their ability to connect with long lost high school buddies or share their latest baby pics with family and friends.

So what to do?

Fortunately, those that have pushed back at Facebook in the past on privacy issues have forced Facebook to provide tools to make you as stealthy as you’d like to be on the site without being completely invisible to those on your ‘friends’ list.

Here’s a guide for making yourself very close to invisible:

While logged into Facebook:

1. Select the ‘Account’ tab at the top right corner of the screen
2. Select ‘Privacy Settings’
3. In the ‘Connecting on Facebook’ section, select ‘View Settings’ – amend these settings to whatever your comfort level is. If you are not interested in letting new people find you on Facebook, then you should change all these settings to ‘Friends Only’. Know that you will not show up in Facebook searches and no one new can add you as a friend.
4. Be sure that you have chosen the ‘Friends Only’ settings in the ‘Sharing on Facebook’ section – click ‘Apply’
5. Select ‘Customize Settings’
6. Be sure that all the drop-downs are ‘Friends Only’
7. Disable the option for ‘Include me in “People Here Now” after I check in
Select ‘Edit album privacy’ and change all the settings to your meet your comfort level. You can customize them to even be invisible or visible to certain people by selecting the ‘customize’ option
8. Back on the main privacy settings page, ‘Choose Your Privacy Settings’, select ‘edit your settings’ in the ‘Apps and Websites’ section in the bottom left corner of the screen
9. Edit the settings for each of the options (on the ‘Instant Personalization’ page, disable the option to see information)

Many of the options listed above are explained in detail by Facebook. However, their goal is to make their site very accessible for both their users and the advertisers that pay to get your information through applications and widgets so they encourage you to share all information by making the defaults very liberal. By limiting the information that Facebook is eager to provide to other users, the search engines and advertisers, you are gaining greater control over who sees your private data. For a regular everyday user that just wants to connect with family and friends, taking these steps returns Facebook much closer to its original purpose.

With its eyes firmly focused on the ebook market which is reportedly about $500 million in annual sales, Google has launched it’s ebookstore. A fast look at the ebookstore appears to make it a smart alternative to buying proprietary e-readers and ebooks like Amazon’s Kindle device.  At the beginning of 2010, Amazon held about 90% of the ebook market – a number that is estimated to drop to about 35% of the overall market in the next five years.

What is special about Google’s ebookstore?

Purchasing a book from their bookstore allows you the ability to use virtually any type of internet accessible electronic device to read your ebook purchased from the Google ebookstore. You can read books on Android devices (smartphones and tablets), iPhones, iPads, iPhone touch, any netbook, laptop or desktop computer and even the Nook from Barnes & Noble and the Sony Reader. Noticeably absent from this list is, of course, Amazon’s Kindle.

Google’s ebooks are stored in the cloud, so there is nothing to download (except maybe an app) if you are using a device connected to the web. And, since your ebooks are stored in your Google account, your page positions will sync across all the devices as you open each device to read.

Given the limitations of other devices such as Amazon’s Kindle which allows you to download your ebook to one device, Google has created a very flexible way to access your purchased reading material.

Research firm, Canalys, reports that Android platform smartphone sales increased an amazing 886% in the 2nd quarter.

An even bigger accomplishment is the fact that Android based phones now account for 34% of the market – topping all other platforms including Apple’s popular iPhone platform.

The press release from Canalys also reports that Android devices combined reached almost 475,000 units in Q2 2010 from no presence in the country a year ago. The Google-backed Android is available in phones from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG, among others.

In total, the US market for smartphones is the largest established market in the world, and it still continues to show rapid growth. In the 2nd quarter of 2010, there were 14.7 million smart phone units shipped.