Where to Get a Free Email Address

Free email addresses are everywhere these days, but which one to choose? There are so many! Below I'll talk about some of the more popular free email sites out there and how to sign up for them.

1. Hotmail: Hotmail is run by Microsoft. This email integrates perfectly into all of Microsoft's products like MSN Messenger (soon to be replaced by Skype), Bing and the MSN games site. But aside from easy integration with other products and services, having a Hotmail address also gives you access to SkyDrive (free online storage space) and easy access to your email 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

To sign up for a Hotmail address simply go to the Hotmail website click where it says "Sign Up Now". Fill in the information it asks for and click "submit". The hardest part of this process is coming up with a name for your email. You'll have "somename"@hotmail.com or "somename"@hotmail.ca but because Hotmail has been around so long the easy ones are already taken. It's likely you'll be putting in a fair amount of numbers and special characters to find one that's not taken.

Hotmail has terrific up-time and it will integrate with your smartphone nicely. That said it has a very high rate of spam. The junk filter does a good job of filtering most of it, but it's not perfect yet. This definitely isn't recommended as an account for children to have access to, but if you can deal with the spam, it's a good, stable choice.

2. Gmail: This is a Google product and will give you access to all of Google's services and apps. Much like Hotmail you will have constant access to your email and Gmail will work with your smartphone without a problem. Google is also not nearly as prone to spam as Hotmail is.

To sign up just go to the Gmail website and click on the link that says "Create a New Account". Again you'll follow the prompts and have to come up with some name for your account. Your address will be "somename"@gmail.com. This can be a difficult process as well because of the number of Gmail accounts that have been created. Just use numbers and underscores to find one that works for you.

3. Yahoo Mail: This is run by Yahoo. The nice part of this one is you can use it to access all of Yahoo's games! It will also integrate with your smartphone and is accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Yahoo hasn't caught up with all the services that Hotmail and Google have, but the email is straightforward to use. You can even use a Hotmail or Google address to sign up with Yahoo and it's available under the Yahoo Canada website which will give you a Canadian email address.

If you're just getting started with email, Yahoo is probably a good choice. It's just email. There is nothing extra to it. It's simple and easy to use and won't overwhelm you with a whole bunch of products or services you don't want.

Most emails, these three included, will ask you for a secondary email in case you lose your password and need to recover it. If you've been using the email that you can get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you can use that as a recovery email. The other option is to sign up for two free email accounts so that you have a recovery email for both. If you don't provide a recovery email and you lose your password, it usually means you have to create a new email address.

Once you're signed up all you have to do is share your email with your friends and start using it. Free email is a great alternative to the email provided by your ISP. In the next article we'll talk about the reasons why you should use a free email address instead. Happy emailing!

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The World's Most Powerful Computer Comes From WHERE?

A supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was named the world's most powerful in a study released on Monday by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The cluster of computers, called Sequoia and built by IBM, can run 16.32 quadrillion operations per second (that's a one followed by 15 zeroes). Sequioa consists of 96 racks, 98,304 individual nodes, 1.6 million cores and 1.6 petabytes of memory (roughly equal to 1638 terabytes, if that helps).

Japan's K computer nabbed the second spot on the list with 10.51 petaflops per second.

"Computing platforms like Sequoia help the United States keep its nuclear stockpile safe, secure, and effective without the need for underground testing," said NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino in a statement. "While Sequoia may be the fastest, the underlying computing capabilities it provides give us increased confidence in the nation’s nuclear deterrent as the weapons stockpile changes under treaty agreements, a critical part of President Obama’s nuclear security agenda."

Sequoia allows scientists to accomplish tasks such as accurately looking at what happens inside of a nuclear bomb blast without actually having to blow anything up. It's an important tool, considering the U.S. put a halt to its nuclear testing program in 1992.

In addition to national security applications, Sequoia will also be put to use study climate change, astronomy and the human genome.

The U.S. lost the top spot in computing power to the Chinese supercomputer Tianhe-1A in 2010. Before Sequoia, the most powerful domestic supercomputer was Jaguar in Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In last year's rankings, Jaguar came in third and Tianhe ranked fifth.

Talking Points Memo reports:

The Sequoia system is also notable for its advances in energy efficiency. It’s 91 percent liquid-cooled, according to Lawrence Livermore, compared to the more common historical method of cooling supercomputers, using extensive arrays of fans. This allows the Sequoia system to achieve more performance while simultaneously consuming less electricity, 7.9 megawatts compared to the Japanese K supercomputer’s 12.7 megawatts, as the blog Gizmag noted.

Still Seqouia is not the most energy-efficient machine on the list: That honor belongs to another IBM supercomputer that placed not far behind, at number 4, Germany’s recently-installed SuperMUC supercomputer located in Leibniz.

"It is a culmination of a lot of smart people working for a very long time, creating a lot of innovations to get you to this point," IBM vice president of high performance computing systems told USA Today of the three years in the making Sequoia project. "There aren't too many players in the world that can build a system like Sequoia."

Of the top 500 most powerful computer systems in the world, IBM was responsible for the construction of nearly half.

Recognition of the world's most powerful computer wasn't the only honor bestowed upon Livermore of late. Last week, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially added two new elements to the periodic table, and one of them was named after the East Bay town. Livermorium (symbol Lv) will now occupy the 116 spot on the table.

The Los Angeles Times explains that Livermorium was produced by shooting calcium ions into curium ions. Since heavy, man-made elements like Livermorium are highly unstable, atoms of the element only existed for 125 milliseconds.

Scientists at Livermore Labs were involved in the discovery of Livermorium as well as five other elements since the facility opened in the early 1950s.

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