What a question. Just think of the necessary evidence that one would need to produce in order to prove, or disprove, that statement. In fact, what is the question about really? Is it whether a human brain or a computer is faster, or is it which form of information processing is better? Is it even a fair comparison? Today, I’d like to engage MakeUseOf readers into a debate on this subject by first providing my own take – and then asking for yours.

The Question: Does a Human Think Faster Than a Computer?

The question itself represents the fallacy of how people think about computers. When a person uses a computer, if it’s slow then it’s junk. But there are certainly other factors to consider when examining intelligence – what about image recognition, language recognition, multi-tasking capabilities or self-learning and self-healing features?

First, to partially answer the “speed” question we need to examine data transmission. In the Hartford Examiner, writer Joy Casad answers the question, “How fast is a thought” by describing the chemical/biological propagation of “thinking” neurons before getting to the point in the final paragraph – these neurons transmit signals at 0.5 milliseconds. That’s pretty fast!

In 2006, the fastest reported fiber optic transmission rate was 2.56 terabits a second. Okay, but a bit is nothing more than a zero and a one. Well – the current state of the art is the cutting edge subatomic technology created by Stanford researchers representing one bit with 35 electrons, or 35,000,000,000 electrons a millisecond. Due to the fact that axon/neuron electrical transmission depends on the chemical and biological environment it is in, data transmission of one neuron is actually millions of times slower than the fastest electrical transmission rates over copper electrical wire, and even slower compared to fiber optics. Score one for computers.

What About Processing Power?

The question of processing is a tricky one. According to the Top500 list of super computers, the fastest one as of 2009 is the RoadRunner BladeCenter at 12.8 GFlops (floating point operations per second).

A GFlop represents a billion operations per second. Now, you’re thinking of that Monday morning in class when your professor asked you to perform a simple calculation and your mind went blank. You’re ready to chalk up another point to computers, right? Wrong.

While the transmission of electrical impulses may be slower in the brain than over wire, the processing power of the brain is represented by not one, but thousands of processors backed into one major super computer. One example is the retina, which is sort of like your computer web cam, in that it transmits light (images) to the brain for processing. Except the retina itself has its own processing power, sort of like a subprocessor – 100 million neurons packed into a one centimeter by one millimeter space.

This stunning little processor is capable of processing ten images, each of about a million light points, every single second. Not only that, the data isn’t transmitted over a single fiber of nerve cells, but over a cable to the brain made up of a million of these fibers, all transmitting bits of data at the same time in parallel. If you multiply the processing power of this volume of neurons by the overall size of the average 1,500 cubic cm human brain, the overall processing power of the brain is about 100 million, million operations per second. For those of you who are trying to do the math with your super computer brain – that’s over 100,000 times more processing power than today’s cutting-edge super computer.

Image and Language Recognition, Learning and Common Sense

If our brains are such super computers, then why do we feel so dense and so slow sometimes? I don’t know about you, but I’m horrible at doing calculations in my head. The problem is that people think of computers only in terms of how many calculations it can do per second. The truth is, when it comes to intelligence there’s so much more to process than calculations alone. How do you calculate what the tone of someone’s voice implies they are really saying?  How do you calculate the irony of a joke that, when taken literally, makes no sense at all? This is where the true power of the human brain makes itself known.

Have you ever had a friend who was such a genius that they could perform the most astounding calculations in their head, or they could fathom the most complex equations or problems imaginable – yet when faced with the simplest common-sense joke, they just didn’t get it? This is the major difference between a human brain and a computer.

Author Gary Marcus writes, in his book on the human mind that, “The fundamental difference between computers and the human mind is in the basic organization of memory.”

What he means is that a computer organizes information in a logical way. To retrieve data, the computer uses logical storage locations. A human brain, on the other hand, remembers where information is stored based on cues. Those cues are other pieces of information or memories connected to the information you need to retrieve. This means that the human mind can connect an almost unlimited number of concepts in a variety of ways, and then sometimes disconnect or recreate connections based on new information. This allows the human to step outside the boundaries of what has already been learned – leading to new art and new inventions that are the trademark of the human race.

There are a lot of other ways the human mind blows computers away – it can self repair itself, it can produce chemical reactions within its host body to induce instinctive reactions and protect itself from danger, it can handle every last function required to operate the machine of the human body while simultaneously processing information from outside that body, and most importantly it can continue learning and building new connections within that contextual storage array in ways that seem infinite.

In short, the answer to the question “Does a human think faster than a computer?” is yes. And it can also do a whole lot more than that.

Geeks out there – weigh in with your opinion in the comments section below!

Image Credits: cbowns

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Whether you’re looking for a cheap mobile plan, the best bank account for your spending habits, the cheapest digicam store or a nearby gas station with lowest petrol prices — these sites have you covered.

(1) CarRentals.com – Compare Car Rental Rates

CarRentals.com is the biggest car rentals aggregator site that makes comparing car rental rates really easy. It searches for offers from different vendors and gives you a list of available cars sorted by the daily rental rates starting from the cheapest.



By default, results are sorted by price. However, you can also sort them by vendor, distance from your house, car type and vendor location.


(2) BillShrink.com – Compare Cell Phone Plans and Credit Cards

Are you sure you’re getting the best deal with your current cell phone plan? BillShrink.com is the place to find it out. Here, you can instantly compare over 100 mobile plans and find the best one for your usage habits. Fill in your preferences and it will return with the cheapest plan meeting those criterias. It only takes about 3-4 minutes.



The site also lets you compare credit cards.

(3) FindABetterBank – Compare Bank Accounts

Find A Better Bank helps you find an ideal bank account. Enter your zip code, indicate the features that are important to you and additional details to help them estimate yearly banking fees. Then, it will give you a detailed comparison of local banks, sorted from best to worst.



Moreover, when you find the ideal bank for your needs, you may check out what others have to say about it and its rating on MyBankTracer.

(4) GasBuddy – Compare Gas Prices

GasBuddy is a great money saver site for those who drive a lot. On this site, you can quickly check gas prices in your area and find the cheapest gas prices and stations. Just type in your zip code and you’ll get a list of gas pumps along with the gas price at each of them.



When it comes to gas prices, I highly recommend you check out PetroFix. This site allows you to hedge against future gas price increases and make sure you never overpay for gas.

(5) Compare Dimensions: Sizeasy / DisplayWars / TV Calculator

Sizeasy, DisplayWars and TV Calculator are 3 excellent sites that can help you a great deal when you are trying to visualize the dimensions for things like small electronic gadgets, mobile phone and TV screens.

I have used these tools countless times and highly recommend them to everyone. Sizeasy works great for smaller items like mobile phones. The other two focuses on TV screens and monitors.



(6) CompareMyFiles – Compare Text Files

CompareMyFiles is a simple online tool that lets you easily compare two text files online side by side. Very useful when you have slightly different versions of the same file and need to find the exact lines where they differ.



(7) PriceGrabber – Compare Product Prices

PriceGrabber is one of the most popular price comparison sites in USA. Search for the product you want to buy and PriceGrabber will find all retailers selling the product and list them starting from the cheapest. The results can be also sorted by user ratings and reviews.



(8) Rentometer – Compare Rent Rates

On Rentometer, you can find out whether the amount you’re currently paying for your rent is a rip-off or a bargain. Rentomoeter compares the amount you pay to an average rate for similar apartments in the neighborhood. There is also a map view of nearby apartments including their rates.



(9) TicketsFTW / TicketPredator – Comparing Ticket Prices For Events

TicketsFTW and TicketPredator brings the best deals on sports, concert, and theater tickets and even sold-out shows. Simply search for the event you want to attend and see the where you can buy it at the lowest fare.



(10) GlassDoor – Compare Your Salary Against Others

GlassDoor lets you anonymously share your salary figure with others and in return, get full access to salaries of others. Simply post an anonymous salary of your own and in few minutes you will have access to salary figures in over 23,000 companies shared by real employees. This is one of the sites that you should definitely check before going for your next job interview.

There are a few other good comparison sites like ShipGooder, PrintingChoice or FrugalMechanic that were covered on MakeUseOf before but didn’t make the list. Check them out as well.

Did we miss any useful comparison sites? Lets us know in comments!

Top image credit: yan =]

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If you are a web developer, you sure have to take care of browser compatibilities and ensure that your web app looks and works almost the same, if not entirely the same across different browsers and platforms.

If you have been looking for an easy solution to see how your site looks in different browsers, then check out the new Adobe BrowserLab. Adobe BrowserLab provides you with exact renderings of your webpages as they would look in different browsers and operating systems. The service might remind you of Browsershots which also provides you with screenshots of your site in different browsers. There is however, no waiting required in Adobe BrowserLab and you get to see the results almost instantaneously.

Adobe BrowserLab allows you to preview your work in Firefox 2.X Windows, Firefox 3.X Windows, Firefox 2.X Mac OS, Firefox 3.X Mac OS, IE6.X and IE7.X and Safari 3.X; which is less than what you can get with Browsershots but includes the popular browsers.

You can view the results side by side (2-up) view, or any individual screenshot (1-up view) or compare the renderings with the “onion-skin” view which overlays one screenshot over the other (as seen below).

You can install BrowserLab MXP extensions to integrate Adobe BrowserLab with Dreamweaver CS4, which would then allow you to preview and compare the local files which you are developing for your site.

Looks too good to be true? Well it is true, at least for a certain period of time anyway. Adobe BrowserLab is a limited free preview service. While Adobe is testing the service, they are letting people hop on board. The final product would most likely require you to shell out some bucks. However, with the time most webapps take these days to drop out of beta stages, you might be able to use BrowserLab for at least a considerable amount of time. You can give it a thorough spin and decide if you would like to spend some money to avail its services in the future.

Interested in webdesign? Check out our MakeUseOf posts to help you become a web-designing wizard.

What clever ways do you use to preview your work in different browsers? Virtualization? Or you install all the browsers? Let us know about them in the comments.

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With that all being said, what is a “webmaster” to do when content and a clean interface are really what they want? Should they create an HTML page in Dreamweaver and update content directly on the page every time one of their writers submits an article to them? Theoretically they could but that would make their life more difficult than it really has to be. Instead they should turn to a Content Management System, or CMS.

Content Management Systems basically keep the content separate from the interface of the website while maintaining a clean look and endless possibilities. The next question becomes, what are my options and what should I use? In reality, there are very, very many options, but only some of the options really matter for personal users.

When I look for a CMS for a personal blog or website I look at a few key things:

Functionality : What exactly can this CMS do for my website? What will it allow and not allow?

Price : If it’s for my personal website, it’d better be FREE! Also, be wary of how the software is licensed and how you are entitled to use the software.

Security : How fast are security vulnerabilities fixed? How many people contribute to bug fixes, etc.?

Extensibility: This goes along with functionality. Does the CMS offer plug-ins or extensions? That is, can I add functionality and expand my site if I wish to do so in the future?

This article is going to focus on two major Content Management Systems that, in my opinion, are the only two that matter or have something to offer for everyone. You can, of course, dispute this in the comments. Let us know what CMS you use or favor.

Wordpress

The first CMS to highlight is called WordPress (which is what Make Use Of runs on). WordPress was started in 2003 and is released as free, open-source software, meaning it is developed for and by the community. WordPress is a very functional, extensible, and easy to use blogging content management system. With WordPress you can create just about anything from a family photo journal to large scale news site.

At WordPress.org, you can find the open source software that you can run on your webhosting service. It takes a little bit of know how to set up but if you’re lucky, your webhost might have an auto-installer for it. For those of you that don’t have hosting or don’t want to get into the configuration and setup, WordPress.com gives you your own free WordPress blog. It is like a blogging social network of sorts. WordPress is very secure and reliable because of its large user base and development backing. It is extensible through thousands of plug-ins to use on your WordPress site. Your site can grow as you grow.

Drupal

The next CMS is Drupal. Drupal is an open source content management system framework which means you can build anything from a static two page site to a high traffic social network. With this huge pool of flexibility comes a much more advanced set up and configuration. It will take you longer to get your site ready but it may make more sense in the long run.

The latest version of Drupal 6.x, gives a very clean admin panel with status and error logs so you can track most errors and know when your installation is out of date. This applies to all of your modules (referred to as modules in the Drupal community), themes, and core. Drupal, like WordPress, is extremely extensible and secure. It also has a very large user base and developer base. Best of all, Drupal is my favorite price – free!

If you are developing a website or online platform, take into consideration WordPress’ ease of use and Drupal’s framework capacity. Check out their websites and real world examples, be sure they have themes or plug-ins that you do or may need later so you can be future-proof for whatever may happen in your website’s potential future. Good luck and may the best CMS win!

(By) Nick Volpe is a freelance blogger and web guru from techNETWORK.US,a provider of tech news, open source software, web development tools, useful tips, as well as podcasts, tech videos, and much more.

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This is how it works: load the file you would like to convert to another format into the converter, choose the output format you want for your file and the converter will first decode the file and then re-encode it to match the output format.

So we’re sort of talking about two things here: Converters and codecs. Let’s start of this article by explaining what codecs are. When we are planning to backup our CDs onto our computers, we have several choices to make: what sort of audio quality we want, our target output filesize and which media player we’re eventually going to play our music on. All this will determine which codec to use. A codec compresses your songs to a smaller filesize. And what differentiates each codec is the quality of the sound it produces for the same bitrate. (For instance, some argue that 128kbps AAC will sound as good as a 190kbps MP3)

FLAC, APE, ALAC, WAV, AIFF. The list of audio codecs is endless. Ok well, not endless but quite long. Due to user preferences, there will always be a myriad of codecs to please the various ranges of audio perception. From lossless encoding for audiophiles, to MP3 or WMV for others who aren’t so picky about the quality of their music collection.

As an audiophile myself, I personally prefer to have my songs uncompressed or encoded in a lossless format. I would like to believe that I can actually hear the difference between songs encoded in 256kbps MP3 and AIFF. I don’t really buy into Apple Lossless because I feel that any song which is encoded in a lower bitrate will have some quality loss. Although, there are arguments that we can’t tell the difference in songs encoded in a bitrate higher than 320kbps. If you would like to find out your sensitivity to music quality, check out ABX Testing.

When choosing which audio codec to backup music CDs with, FLAC seems to be the most popular lossless codec, with APE coming in a close second place. Unfortunately, our very dear iTunes music player recognizes neither of the two. So, cue the role of audio converters to convert these files into formats which iTunes does recognize i.e. AIFF, MP3, AAC, etc.

Two of the most prominent free audio converters are Max and XLD. I decided to try them both out and see which rises to be more superior. Let’s go with XLD first.

XLD (X Lossless Decoder)

I’ve been using this application for a while and I’m quite pleased with the results. The interface is simple and the preferences aren’t confusing at all. It recognizes and converts between almost every audio format except for WMV:

These are FLAC, Monkey Audio (APE), Wavpack, True Audio Codec (TTA), Apple Lossless, AAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV, and PCM

It can read and split files with a cue sheet (.cue), manually add album artwork directly to output files and preview songs with its internal player. Where XLD fails to win my total support is the inability to edit output song names before decoding, the fact that it only decodes one file at a time and doesn’t utilize multi-core processing, and if the need arises to cancel a batch convert – XLD only allows me to cancel each item separately.

Max

Next up is Max. You’ve probably heard about it. It’s one of the more popular CD-ripping utilities for Mac. In addition to that, it is also a pretty decent audio converter. Like XLD, it supports all of the popular codecs (FLAC, APE, AAC etc.) and about thirty more. Because of that, setting up the output format is pretty confusing. It is so highly configurable that it has several OGG, MPEG4 and AAC output formats; and plenty more formats which I’ve not heard of.

You may choose one or several output formats but beware, if you select more than one, there isn’t a prompt selection window just before decoding. Max will decode the files in all the formats selected resulting in one file but with several different formats!

Where XLD fails, Max triumphs. It provides me with the option to edit filenames before decoding them, along with customization of ID3 tags and album art via Amazon Album Art downloader.

Max utilizes multi-core processing and it will decode/convert two songs at the same time, speeding up the process for those who can’t wait to listen to their spanking new songs. And again, bringing XLD to shame, Max allows me to cancel a batch convert with a single click.

In conclusion,

Max is :

• Confusingly highly-configurable
• able to edit ID3 tags before decoding
• tricky if several output formats are selected
• able to download album art from Amazon and attach them to output files
• utilizes multi-core processing

However XLD is :

• Simple to use
• easy to choose output formats
• able to preview songs before decoding
• restricted to decoding one file at a time, doesn’t utilize multi-core processing
• difficult to cancel a batch decode

Seems like Max is the obvious winner here. But due to the simplicity and easy of use of XLD – it is one which I would recommend for casual users. For those who need their songs to be configured exactly the way they want it, then Max is the way to go.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time med student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future. He also manages a Mac news site, Macnifying.

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1- Compare Product Prices with PriceGrabber

I’ve tried many comparison shopping sites and can confirm that PriceGrabber is one of the best ones. Simply search for the product you want to buy and PriceGrabber will list all available retailers starting from the cheapest. If you’re not clear about what exactly you want to purchase, then you can browse products by categories and filter them further by specs, features and brand. Products can also be sorted by user ratings and reviews.

2- Compare Banks with FindaBetterBank

Looking for a new bank account? Wondering how your current bank account stands against account offerings from other banks in the area? Find A Better Bank is the one and only tool you need. It’s very thorough and can help you locate the best bank account for your needs in a matter of minutes.

So how it works?

Enter your zip code, indicate the features that are important to you and provide additional details to help them estimate yearly banking fees. Done. Now you have a detailed comparison of nearby banks, sorted from best to worst.

3- Compare Cell Phone Contracts with BillShrink

There are so many cell phone contracts out there that it’s almost impossible to find out whether you’re getting a good deal. BillShrink is a new service that can help you with this. This handy website first asks you about your usage preferences and requirements (i.e. average daily talk time, whether you need data plan, SMS usage etc.). Then it compares over 100 mobile plans and finds the best plan for your needs. I am quite surprised that we haven’t seen something like this earlier.

The whole procedure takes about 3-4 minutes. Read more …

4 -Compare your Rent with RentoMeter

RentoMeter is a web based rent comparison service. Here you can find out whether the amount you’re currently paying for your rent is a rip-off or a bargain deal. Rentomoeter compares the amount you pay to an average rate for the similar apartments in the neighborhood area. It will also give you a mapview of nearby apartments including their rates. Check out the RentoMeter in action here.

5- Compare Budget Airlines with SkyScanner

One of the few budget flight search engines that can actually find you the best ticket. I tested it both in Europe and Asia and can confrim that it actually WORKS! It’s also the only budget airline search tool I am aware of that works for inter-continental flights. SkyScanner only searches among budget airlines so you won’t see any pricey tickets here.

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