When you’ve had enough of staring at photos of rapelling ninja squirells, do make sure that you contact your office immediately, and demand your boss moves the laser printer 8-foot further away from your desk.

Research announced just over an hour ago has revealed the serious health risks being imposed by killer laser printers. Australians researches have uncovered that a third of all laser printers emit harmful particles of loose toner, which it is believed, have a similar effect on the lungs as that of second hand smoke. (Enter ridiculously overstated EU regulations!) So who’s actually at risk? Let’s compare two completely different lifestyles and see who’ll die first. (This is the cheerful bit - believe me…)

Mr X

- Non-smoker.
- Workaholic.
- Sits in cubical with printer 8 hours a day.

Mrs Q

- Regular smoker.
- Unemployed.
- Sits at home smoking 8 ‘fags’ a day.

That’s eight hours worth of second hand smoke being breathed in, versus 8 cigarettes a day. Seems unfair, that the guy doing a legitimate job should die sooner than the unemployed Mrs Q. Just the way life works, I guess. Back to the logistics though… “The researchers carried out tests on more than 60 machines. Almost one-third were found to emit ultra-tiny particles of toner-like material, so small that they can infiltrate the lungs and cause a range of health problems from respiratory irritation to more chronic illnesses. Conducted in an open-plan office, the test revealed that particle levels increased five-fold during working hours, a rise blamed on printer use. The problem was worse when new cartridges were used and when graphics and images required higher quantities of toner.”

Expect a big, bright red, capitalized warning notice on the next printer you buy. via BBC.

A picture says one-thousands words, and unfortunately for Intel, in this case, nothing could be truer. On par with the other major advertising disgraces this year so far, Intel seems hell-bent on outdoing Sony’s public slaughtering of a goat, by creating an advert with a single gekky dork, wearing khaki pants, surrounded by 6 (bowing?) black athletes. Call me stupid, but that just might be racist. Companies are given the right to freely advertise in the knowledge they’ll play nice and not dirty. Intel - you broke the rules. Say sorry, apologize to the community, and send me a DiNovo Edge make sure this never happens again.

Or maybe controversial advertising is part of the world we live in. Either which way - Gizmodo writer Adam Frucci now WANTS a Core 2 processor. Explain the logic for me, please…

It’s official (almost). ‘Insiders’ and ‘tipsters’ left right and central have been dropping off ‘dirt’ with blurry camera phone photos to accompany. Walmart has reportedly started the printing of summer blowout flyers, advertising the premium console at $50, with Toys ‘R’ Us already offering a $50 gift card/rebate to those who buy the premium edition. August 8th is the price-cut date, and if reports are correct, that should be just in time for the widely anticipated BioShock’s scheduled release, alongside other games such as Blue Dragon, and Halo 3 - expected later this year.

Xbox-Scene again are reporting, alongside Kotaku and Gizmodo, the 8th August pricedrop, but again, the news coming from a different external, reliable source. Although sources have denied to speculate whether the whole line of 360s will be getting a pricecut, it stands to reason that in order to keep the pressure on the Nintendo Wii, and the grossly overpriced PS3, Microsoft’s marketing team will be eager to push the core package as close to the Wii’s price as possible, whilst maintaining a healthy profit margin, made easier by the spiralling production cost in recent months of the hardware used within the 360.

Confusion is rife, however, and Microsoft employees are contradicting themselves in each and every statement that reaches us, here, at TechZi. Just three weeks ago, corporate vice president Shane Kim told SeattlePi.com that “July is a very odd time to announce a price reduction”, before going on to say that Microsoft felt “no pressure to react to anything that Sony has done”, referring to the PS3’s recent pricedrop. If indeed though, the company goes ahead with what is looking like an almost certain pricedrop, Kim’ll be feeling a lil’ silly, seeing that the news got out in… Uh… July. via technabob

We could be waving goodbye to ’sticky keys’ once and for all, with the Korean ‘magnet key’ concept. “Unlike existing rubber or spring type keyboards, the Magnet Keyboard supports better natural and constant typing feeling even though you use it for a long time, by utilizing magnetic levitation.” Varying electromagnetic force adaption helps adjust to multi-finger power, with response time faster enough to match what is expected from a professional gamer. Though still in early concept stages, release is scheduled for Q4 this year. No pricing details have been revealed yet.

“Embotec has just lifted the curtain on its Magnet Keyboard concept in Korea. A radical departure from the traditional rubber or spring type keyboards, the Magnet Keyboard offers a more natural and constant typing feeling even though you’ve been sitting in front of your desk the whole day long, thanks to magnetic levitation technology utilized within.” via uber

Coming to a home near you? Hardly… Butt 75-year-old Swedish “lil ol’ lady” Sigbritt Lothberg is believed to be at the helm of the world’s fastest residential Internet connection. In just 2 meager seconds, a full length feature film can be downloaded… Of course we know Sigbritt will be sticking with her alibai, reading online newspapers and checking The New York Times for regular updates.

The net connection, setup by Hafsteinn Jonsson (head of Karlstad city network unit) in co-operation with Mrs Lothberg’s son, Peter, was done in the name of speed. “We wanted to show that that there are no limitations to Internet speed”. All the same, they failed… 40GBs a second, whilst undoubtedly incredible, is NOT unlimited.

When you compare the sheer power, to the low-net-availability in Kazakhstan (fuelled by the fact a simple 6MB/second connection will set you back $22,032 a month) means that the social divide in the 21st century will continue to grow, till access to the web becomes more centeralized and spread. via AP.

The horrible good ol’ fashioned curvy keyboard are making a comeback. Right from their 1990s ‘hey-day’ shopping spree, Logitech have launced their ‘Wave’ keyboard, giving the dastardly uncomfy comfy keyboards a 2007 makeover. Spiffy artwork on the spacebar, the afformentioned stylish little wristpad and a raft of new features lets you revel in bad typing habits stylishly.

According to a study at Harvard, for Logitech, the average person types approximately 2 million keystrokes every year. That’s equal to 200 hours of typing. The Logitech Wave Comfort Design will delight people by offering the perfect balance of comfort and usability.

But of course - that’s just the ‘average’ person. Geeks like me and you probably average and extra 10 million (if not more). Not that I’ve ever found my plain old keyboard uncomfy, but Logitech reckons that if I buy some horribly shaped keyboard, I’ll miss all the buttons protect myself against damaging my wrists. The innovative “wave key-frame design” (despite whatever claims are made) is nothing new to keyboard manufacturers, however there’s no denying that the wrist rest looks kinda funky. Like most modern Logitech products, it’s both OSX and Windows compatible and like my Logitech G15, it comes with a large array of programmable keys - for quick-starting applications and quick-switching in games. Priced at just $50 (£25) though, the curvacious ‘Wave’ keyboard comes in considerably cheaper. via Gadgetell

In the name of all things blogworthy (which to be said thesedays, is remarkably little), on my blog’s first anniversery, I’m stuck writing about nothing but bobbleheads and wannabe new skateboard designs. Oh great rumour mill, save us! That said, when there are rumours, we complain, when there aren’t, we complain. At least it adds an element of surprise.

Of course the wannabe skateboard I’m referring to is the Magicwheel. It looks tacky, it sounds like a joke and even though it works pretty darn well, if they can’t cut down on the size dramatically, I can’t see how tthe Magicwheel will sell at all. Think of a unicycle, crossed with a skateboard, crossed with rollerskates and then mashed up with a bicycle. It’s just not meant to happen. Grab yourself a segway and begone with sich primitive, foot-propelled devices. Who seriously wants to spend their free time doing anything but leaving forward on a motorised, geeky gadget?

With a top speed od 20MPH, the Magicwheel, some fear, will lead to a sharp increase in idiot-related-accidents. We’ll have to wait and see… Afterall, there are people still complaining about 5MPH segways.

TechZi is one, as of today. It’s been one helluva life changing year for me. My writing style has changed entirely. The way I think has been turned upside down. I’ve learned to trust myself and my beliefs far more than I had one year ago. My end of year analysis? Blogging is good for you. For your mind, for your heart, for your wallet, and more importantly, for the friendships you’ll make out of becoming a blogger.

Social interaction. Community. Communication. Consideration. And what did I tell you? It paid off, and is still doing to the day. Except I feel it’s now pretty safe to add yet another item to that list. Collaboration. Have you ever guest blogged for someone? Naturally, balancing your time wisely and spreading your writing between your own blog and other people’s blogs can become quite a gruelling task, but after I found out (through blunt e-mails, blunt comments and blunt poll results) that my readers weren’t all that interested in my online marketing, and wanted me to switch back to my old tech news, I figured it’d be great to vent my thoughts through other people’s blogs. Shoemoney, for instance. ProBlogger, as another example.

To mark TechZi’s special one-year bash, I could give away an iPhone. Chuck a portable TV your way. Maybe, if I was feeling uber generous, slip another Wicked Laser to a lucky reader. But how would you benefit from that, in the long run? I figure if you guys are as smart as you look (and talk from the sound of your comments), you’ll be a heck of a lot more interested in something that, with time, will pay off. Massively.

Affiliate Marketing. Something many fear, yet few understand. I’m not going to rant on about it forever, but if you’re that interested, check out the Wikipedia article on the topic. In short though, once you’ve kicked off your affiliate business online, you can easily earn thousands of dollars in passive income. Passive meaning automated, to the extent where you don’t need to even touch a computer for a month and you can come back and find $10,000 waiting for you. And the really rockin’ thing is, I’ll show you how (in video format, alongside a whole bunch of eBook training material) with Affiliate Defined.

For free.

…

w00t! All you need to do are follow the simple steps below.

1 - Link to http://www.techzi.net/ with anchor text of your choice.

2 - Link to this post with the anchor text ‘FREE Affiliate Marketing Guide’.

3 - Link to http://www.affiliatedefined.com/ with the anchor text ‘Affiliate Marketing’ (without the quotes).

4 - Drop a comment here, stating the URL(s) where you’ve posted the links.

5 - Smile. You’re in.

The scoring system?

10 points - Blog post with all mentioned links.

5 points - Sitewide linkback to http://www.affiliatedefined.com/ with anchor text ‘Affiliate Marketing’.

1 point - Single page linkback to http://www.affiliatedefined.com/ with anchor text ‘Affiliate Marketing’.

You can put up the blog posts/linkbacks on as many websites as you’d like. The more, the merrier! And a better chance of winning you’ve got too, with more points in the bank.

Only ONE person will win, and the competition will end sometime during September. We reserve the right to extend this, if we feel necessary, but we’re sure you’ll all rise to the challenge - right? Seeing as the product’s not fully formed and packaged yet, I can’t say that as soon as the winner is announced, they’ll get their prize. It might be (dare I say it) a few further months before you receive it, but all the same, I want it to be as spiffy and concise as possible.

Questions or comments, leave ‘em here and I’ll do my best to get back to them all ASAP.

This post is sponsored by: Online Coupon Codes

The start of a new year also brings the start of a new SEO campaign and sad as it sounds, you can get a slice of the Googley goodness too.

This isn’t complicated stuff. It’s a link train. I link to you, you link to people, they link to more people, those people link to their friends who link to their friends who link to their… Yeah. It’s viral. And in commemeration of TechZi’s first birthday, alongside the nifty competition we’re running, you can take part in our free link train! Here’s the deal…

———- START COPYING HERE ———-

Geek Train - All aboard!

1 - Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and linkback to the blog(s) that put you on the list in the paragraph. You MUST do this. No-one plans on getting slapped for duplicate content any time soon, do they?

2 - Next, copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your own blog. If you’d like a different keyword for your blog then change it, when you do your post, and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword, provided the train keeps on spreading.

3 - Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4 - Add at least three new favourite blogs of yours to keep the train going, e-mail the blog owners (or comment on one of their posts) and insist that they post.

My Adds:

(The overclocker) Shawn Knight
(The incredible) Chris Hooley
(The rhetorical) Michael Kwan
(The talented) Leo Chiang
(The root of all evil) John Chow
(The business dude) Josh Mullineaux
(The brilliant) Shoemoney
(The absurdly loud) Ed Lau
(The mastermind) Jon Waraas
(The yaketty) Stephen Fung
(The wickedly cool) Everton Blair
(The uber blogger) Ms Danielle
(The enterprising) Matt Coddington
(The career minded) Jane May
(The legendary) Gary Lee
(The nifty) Dosh Dosh
(The ambitious) Jeff Kee

The Originals:

(The kick-ass) Nate Whitehill
(The original) 13-Year Old Blogger.
(The money-making) Affiliate Marketing guide.
(The crafty two at) TechRave
(The AdSense ‘dude’) Michael Cheney

This link train is the brainchild of David Wilkinson, hyper, money-making kid, and kick-ass blog designer Nate Whitehill.

———- END COPYING HERE ———-

If you didn’t get tug? Don’t worry! Just add yourself onto the list, including the originals by posting on your own site, and start right away! Enjoy the wave of traffic, linkbacks and general SEO yummyness.

This post is sponsored by Internet Marketing guru Gary Lee, who is giving away a free iPhone. He runs a pretty darn nifty golf equipment website, alongside his Online Coupon Codes website.

It’s blatently clear. The Zune will not win. Heck - it’s in worse shape than the PS3… and that’s saying something. In the latest development, Microsoft has ‘officialy’ confirmed that come Christmas, we can expect to lay our eyes (or not as the case may be) and the brand new Zune 2.0. The Microsoft rep who made the announcement, stated that some new sizes were planned, along with more styles and varying pricepoints.

A bit like the iPod I guess. Thinner Zunes perhaps, mimicing the Nano. Maybe even some tiny ‘Shuffle’ Zunes, too. And then there’s the rumoured video and podcast integration, taking the Zune one step further still into iPod territory. The evidently clueless rep also slipped in mention of how undeniably future-proof the Zune is. Why? According to the rep, “the Zune’s firmware can always be updated making new features available”. Just like almost every other RAM based player out there, unless I’m gravely mistaken.

With only a million Zunes under their belt (compared to Apple’s whopping 100,000,000+), it’s clear reform is needed. Will the added features and new pricepoints make a difference though? I doubt it. Jumping into a market five years too late isn’t always the smartest thing to do, especially when up against a dominating leader, who’s brand exposure has penetrated just about everywhere. Africa, Europe, The Americas, Asia, Australisa, Antarctica… You name it!