Posts Tagged ‘history’

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Emeralds – The Green Stones

Monday, December 19th, 2011

The majority of women like jewellery, Many men do as well, but they tend to prefer gadgets and watches. In many countries women store their wealth in jewellery as exemplified by the Fifties song “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”. Asian women in particular accumulate gold.

However, precious stones and precious metals are generally perceived to be very valuable. Leaving the value of the jewelry aside, most people have a favourite colour.

Some like yellow gold, others prefer white. Some prefer the clarity and brilliance of diamonds, while others would rather have aquamarine, turquoise of green.

In fact, high-quality green gems are among the most expensive of all gemstones including diamonds. Emeralds are the most costly green gemstones weight for weight.

Gemstones are created underground at great pressures and they obtain their colours from the minerals involved in their composition. Gemstones are generally quite hard, because they were fashioned under great pressure.

In olden times, many people believed that gemstones had magical properties. The magical property attributed to emerald was the restoration of vision and the curing of eye illnesses.

In fact, emeralds are a kind of beryl and get their green colour from the element chromium or occasionally vanadium. Emeralds have a hardness of seven to eight; diamonds are the hardest at 10 on the Mohs Scale.

However, emerald has a great many inclusions (or faults), so it will shatter fairly easily. These inclusions give emeralds their typical fuzzy look.Nevertheless, the best emeralds are those that have a clear, transparent, even colour of green throughout.

Weight for weight, an emerald of top quality is more valuable than a diamond of comparable quality, which surprises most people. However, decent diamonds are easier to find than decent emeralds and hence the disparity in price.

Become very suspicious of stones that are called ‘something’ emeralds like Lithia emeralds or oriental emeralds. These are usually cheaper gemstones which are referred to as emeralds in order to boost their value. These stones are not emeralds and not worth much in comparison.

Because of the value of real emeralds, many ‘cheap emeralds’ are either not emeralds at all or are very bad specimens that are being held together by resin. It is very difficult for a greenhorn to know the difference between the decent and the bad, which makes it important to buy from a trustworthy jeweller or dealer.

Emeralds have been popular since the times of the pharaohs and there are emerald mines in Egypt. There are also emerald mines in Siberia, Brazil, Zambia, Pakistan, South Africa, India and Australia amongst other places.

In spite of the fact that there appears to be many sources of emeralds, good quality gemstones are still hard to get hold of at a decent price. However, there are no equivalents to emerald, so if you like the best, you can expect to pay handsomely for it.

As with all costly gemstones, you ought to get a signed certificate of weight and quality when you purchase an emerald.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with Amber in Poland. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry but Watches.

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The History of Rugby

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Today, every schoolboy knows the story of William Webb Ellis, the Rugby School pupil “who with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it”. The presentation trophy for the Rugby World Cup is named the Webb Ellis trophy in his memory, and his “achievement” is honoured by a plaque at the school

There is just one thing wrong with this story. It simply is not the case. It was not until four years after the death of Webb Ellis in 1876 that the story first saw the light of day and its origin is thought to come from a local antiquarian and previous Rugbeian Matthew Bloxam.

He was not a contemporary of Webb Ellis but says that the story was told to him by an anonymous source some 53 years after the incident is supposed to have happened.

In 1823, when the event is alleged to have happened, the rules of rugby had yet to be written and any alterations, such as the legality of carrying or running with the ball, were often agreed on an ad hoc basis a short time before the start of a game.

There were therefore no formal rules for football during the time William Webb Ellis was at the school (1816?25). It was not until 1845, some 200 years after football was first played at Rugby School, that three pupils published the first written rules of the game.

For numerous years it had been the boys, and not the masters who had set down the rules which were often modified by every new generation of pupils.

Guy’s Hospital Football Club, created in London in 1843, by old boys from Rugby School, has strong claims to be the oldest football club in the world. It definitely predates by 14 years the creation of Sheffield FC, believed to be the oldest club playing association football.

In 1871, after a number of problematic disputes with the Football Association, 21 clubs met in London to create an association of those clubs ‘who play the rugby-type game’.

Consequently, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was formed. The first International rugby match was played on 27 March 1871 between England and Scotland. The English team wore white shirts ornamented with a red rose and the Scots brown shirts with a thistle. (Scotland won the game).

The worries and conflicts regarding amateurism and professionalism had long proved a thorny topic. The representatives of Yorkshire and Lancashire are accredited with bringing in rules concerning amateurism in 1879.

These rules were finally formalized by the RFU in 1886. It is widely believed that the northern clubs were in favour of the professional game whereas these northern bodies were robust advocates of amateurism,

However, conflict arose over the controversy regarding ‘broken time’, the topic of whether players should receive reimbursement for taking time off work to play.

The northern clubs had a large number of working class players who had either to miss games due to working commitments, or give up their wages in order to play rugby. By 1892, this subject of broken time payments was a problem not just for northern clubs such as Bradford and Leeds but also for clubs in the south.

It became a concern of the RFU: these broken time repayments would become a rapid path to professionalism.

On 29 August 1895, 20 clubs from Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire met at the George Hotel, Huddersfield and decided to resign from the RFU and create the Northern Rugby Football Union, which from 1922 became the Rugby Football League.

The quarrel about payment was one which at the time was also affecting soccer and cricket. Each game had to work out a compromise; rugby’s position was the most radical. Amateurism was strictly enforced, and anyone accepting payment for playing rugby league was disqualified.

However, on 26 August 1995 the International Rugby Board declared rugby union an “open” game and thereby removed all restrictions on payments or advantages to those connected with the game.

It did this because of a committee conclusion that to do so was the only way to end the hypocrisy of sham amateurism and to maintain control of rugby union. The wheel had turned full circle.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present involved with the London 2012 Olympics mascot. Click a link if you are interested in the 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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What Type Of Cars Are NASCAR Cars?

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Stock car racing was really born out of the inclination of owners of modified stock (meaning: ‘off the sales lot’) cars to show off their vehicles, craftsmanship and driving expertise. The need to ‘soup up’ these stock cars came from the wish to escape the law enforcement agencies chasing them when they were running moonshine or said another way, bootlegging.

For the period of Prohibition, a lot of moonshine whiskey was being produced in isolated regions of the Appalachians and in particular the Allegheny Mountains, from where it was transported by private carriers in their own stock cars often to the southern states. Many of these drivers tuned up their cars in order to have more chance of escape.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, this bootlegging continued in order to circumvent paying duty, but it slowly died out. However, the fire had already been lit and the drivers of these cars liked to race them in their spare time for pride and reward, particularly in the southern states and particularly in North Carolina, where most of the stock car teams are still to be found.

NASCAR was established by Bill French in 1947 when he created the first set of standardized rules and a championship points system so that an overall winner of all the season’s races could be worked out.

However, the conditions in the early days were pretty crude. The cars were usually second-hand and worn and the track was just dirt and dust. Under these circumstances the cars quickly fell apart, so NASCAR permitted competing cars to be modified or strengthened. Safety features for the drivers were also brought in. These days, the NASCAR handbook clearly defines all the alterations that are allowed on contending cars.

These days it is a mistake to call NASCAR cars ‘stock cars’; they are anything but stock cars. NASCAR cars are hand made. The frames are different from stock cars in that they are manufactured from tubes for strength; the tin is sheet steel and the engine blocks start as just that – a bare block. What the engineers do with it after that is a closely guarded secret.

The safety of the driver is also taken very earnestly. The driver is shielded from injury by a heavy roll cage. Strong round and square tubes make up the car’s framework, while thinner tubing is employed at the front and back ends to soak up the impact of crashes by crushing slowly. These are called clips and the front clip will also allow the engine to fall away under the car, rather than be forced straight back into the driver.

The bodies of NASCAR cars are not easy to make, often taking ten days to complete. However, NASCAR rules cover the general body shape and they provide thirty templates to make making a NASCAR car a little simpler.

But it does not stop there. There are different regulations and templates for different sorts of races on different tracks, because the cars that compete on superspeedways are not the same as those used for short tracks or endurance races.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present involved with thinking about the Poconos Raceway in Pennsylvania. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Poconos Vacations.

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The Land Of Song – Wales

Monday, November 28th, 2011

Wales has a long history of music and has been known as the ‘land of song’ since at least the Nineteenth Century. This reference to Wales as the land of song, probably comes from the passionate singing in Welsh churches and at Welsh sports meetings, particularly at rugby matches. However, Wales’ links with music go much further back than that.

Wales has a tradition of folk music which is closely linked with Scottish and Irish folk music. There are several forms of musical gathering that are comparable to those in other Celtic countries in the United Kingdom. For instance there is the twmpath (folk dance session), g?yl werin (folk festival) and noson lawen (a traditional party comparable to the Gaelic “C?ilidh”).

Contemporary Welsh folk musicians have often resurrected traditions which had been suppressed or forgotten, and have competed with imported and native rock and pop trends. This has been particularly the case since the 1990′s.

Despite contemporary Welsh trends in music, Wales will always be connected with Male Voice Choirs such as the Morriston Orpheus Choir and Treorchy Male Voice Choir which benefit from world wide fame.

These choirs were frequently made up of workers from one village or one coal mine and so it was quite natural for men to sing when one town played against another, especially if that game was Wales’ national sport of rugby. The first time the Welsh National Anthem, ‘Yr Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ (‘The Old Country of my Fathers’, normally translated as ‘Land of My Fathers’), was sung at an International sporting event was in 1905

Along side the choirs, brass bands developed in villages, working men’s associations, churches and at work especially in South Wales where brass bands are still very popular. In fact, the Cory Band is one of the most best brass bands in the world.

There were quite a few world renowned Welsh singers in the Twentieth Century and some of them are still singing to jam-packed audiences worldwide. Ivor Novello was one of the first who became well-known during the First World War as a singer songwriter. Then there was Geraint Evans and Delme Bryn-Jones in the Second World War.

After that, Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey began their singing careers in the 1950′s but are still singing fifty years later. There were also popular bands in the Seventies and Eighties such as Man and Budgie and solo artists such as Shakin’ Stevens, nnie Tyler and John Cale (Velvet Underground).

In more recent times, we have seen the Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia, Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci; the latter two bands being famous for lots of their songs’ lyrics being in Welsh.

There have always been operatic singers as well such as Rebecca Evans, Aled Jones, Bryn Tervel and Charlotte Church. Cardiff hosts the ‘Singer of the World’ competition and the Wales also has its very own Eisteddfod, where Pavarotti sang for years. It was because of Wales tradition as a nation of singers that Paul Robeson sang in Wales in the Fifties

If you are interested in a Welsh gold wedding ring, or Wales in general, go to our web site at Welsh Products Online

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History Of Tennis

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

The very first recorded mention of tennis was in the fourteenth Cycle of plays known as ‘The Second Shepherds? Play’ from the Wakefield Yorkshire writer known simply as The Wakefield Master. In scene VIII Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur?s round table plays tennis with a band of giants.

However, this would have been the medieval form of tennis known as real tennis which had evolved more than three centuries from an earlier ball game played in France around the 12th century.

This involved hitting the ball with the naked hand or later a glove and is thought to have begun with monks playing the game in monastery cloisters, judging by the construction and appearance of some of the early courts.

The game soon proved to be a success among European royals and in England was taken up by Henry V in the early fifteenth century. A hundred years later Henry VIII had the biggest effect as a young monarch, playing the game with enthusiasm at Hampton Court on a court he built in 1530.

The game flourished among the 17th century upper class in France, Spain, Italy, and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism. By the time of Napoleon, the royal families of Europe were under threat and real tennis was mostly abandoned.

In England, in the 18th century and early 19th century, as real tennis became less popular, three other racquet sports emerged: racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game).

The modern sport is tied to two separate inventions.Between 1859 and 1865, in Birmingham, England, Major Harry Gem, a solicitor, and his friend Augurio Perera, a Spanish merchant, combined elements of the game of rackets and the Spanish ball game pelota and played it on a croquet green in Edgbaston.

In 1872, both men moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, in the company of two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, established the world’s first tennis club. In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield devised a comparable game for the enjoyment of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd in Llanelidan, Wales.

He founded the game on the older real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, Wingfield named it “lawn tennis, and patented the game in 1874 with an eight-page rule book titled “Sphairistike or Lawn Tennis”, but he failed to be successful in enforcing his patent.

Tennis was first played in the U.S. at the residence of Mary Ewing Outerbridge on Staten Island, New York in 1874. In 1881, the desire to play tennis in competition led to the establishment of tennis clubs, which led to the four Grand Slams, which are regarded as the most important activities on the tennis circuit.

They are: Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open and they evolved into and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis. Both the name and much of the French vocabulary of tennis are borrowed from real tennis:

Tennis comes from the French tenez, the imperative form of the verb tenir, to hold: This was a cry used by the player serving in royal tennis, meaning “I am about to serve!” (rather like the cry “Fore!” in golf). ? Racquet comes from raquette, which derives from the Arabic rakhat, denoting the palm of the hand. ? Deuce comes from ‘? deux le jeu’, meaning “to both is the game” (that is, the two players have equal scores). ? Love is commonly believed to come from “l’oeuf”, the French word for “egg”, representing the shape of a zero. ? The convention of numbering scores “15″, “30″ and “40″ comes from quinze, trente and quarante, which to French ears makes a pleasant sound, or from the quarters of a clock (15, 30, 45) with 45 simplified to 40.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently concerned with tickets for London Olympics. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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History Of Formula One

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Formula One, also called Formula 1 or F1, and officially referred to as the FIA Formula One World is the highest class of single seater auto racing authorized by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).

The “formula” in the designation refers to a set of regulations with which all participants’ cars must comply. It is almost certainly the most widely watched televised spectator sport in the world after football.

Formula One can be seen live or tape delayed in almost each country and territory around the world and attracts one of the largest global television audiences. The 2008 season attracted a global audience of 600 million people per race.

It is a enormous television event; the cumulative TV audience was calculated to be 54 billion for the 2001 season, broadcast to two hundred countries.

This is a long way indeed from its first beginnings. The very first Formula One World Championship Motor race took place at Silverstone in the United Kingdom in 1950 . In those initial days, teams who no longer compete on the modern F1 circuit dominated proceedings with the very first World Championship being won by Italian Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo.

His team mate, the legendary Juan Fangio, won the title almost continuously until 1957 and, in fact, his record of five World Championship wins held until 2003 when Michael Schumacher won his sixth title.

It was during this timespan that almost certainly the greatest driver never to win the World Championship was contending – the U.K.?s Stirling Moss.

One team that did contend in those early years was Ferrari, or Scuderia Ferrari to give the team its full title, whose prancing horse logo is followed by the red shirted fans or ?tifosi? across the world. In fact, during the last few years the sport has been dominated by Ferrari who until recently has been one of the few teams to assemble the complete car, engine and all.

However the U.K. team of Maclaren, using engines from Mercedes Benz, have proved extremely successful. Another very successful team during the 2010 season proved to be Red Bull racing using engines supplied by Renault.

It is remarkable to note that in the cases of both Maclaren and Red Bull, they have proved much more successful than the teams fielded by their engine suppliers, Mercedes and Renault. This probably goes a long way to sustaining the argument that it is the aerodynamic properties of the car that win races.

After several years in which we have seen the number of teams has stayed quite static or even declined, 2010 saw a renaissance in the number of cars on the grid with new entries from Lotus, Virgin Racing, and Hispania Racing bringing the number of starters to 24.

The calendar of races is also in a constant state of flux with Korea joining for the 2010 season and India being added in 2011 as Formula 1 becomes more and more a world- wide spectacle as it moves away from its traditional European heartland.

But wherever the teams race and whatever the number of cars on the starting grid it will continue to set the pulses racing as those 5 red lights go out!

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on lots of topics, but is currently concerned with London Olympic dates. Click a link to find out more 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.

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A Brief History Of Hinduism

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Hinduism is a complex blend of polytheistic religion, a (belief in many gods, rather like the Greek and the Roman deities) and philosophy. It stemmed from Vedism, which dates back to the second millennium before Christ. It is not surprising therefore that numerous sects have developed or broken away from a faith of this age.

However, most of these sects read the one book, the Vedic writings known collectively as the ‘Upanishads’, and their differences result from their individual interpretations of it. These writings describe the activities of Shiva, the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe and they are based on even more ancient texts such as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and, less well-known in the West, the Puaranas.

The Bhagavad Gita, the Lord’s Song, a part of the Mahabharata, relates a dialogue between Krishna (another incarnation of the god Vishnu) and the student Prince Arjuna. This dialogue elucidates the three paths to enlightenment or union with God.

This might sound dreary, but I can promise you that reading the Bhagavad Gita could easily transform the way that you look upon life no matter what religion you believe in, if you have one.

The fundamentals of Hinduism are that individuals ought to try to connect their selves (Atman) with the Godhead (Brahman) and reincarnation (samsara). Just what people come back as is determined by how people have led their lives, that is, one’s actions (karma) and one’s duty (dharma).

This constant reincarnation into a life of suffering can only be broken when one reaches the Godhead in a state of Atman-Brahman. Their are four paths to attain this divine condition in Hinduism. These are: jnana yoga, which is based on knowledge; bhakti yoga, which is based on service to God; karma yoga, which is based on work for God (rather than oneself) and raja yoga, which is based on psychophysical exercise.

Raja yoga, or the ‘Royal Path’, is the kind of yoga that most Westerners will have heard of and seen. Raja yoga is more common in these West these days than at any other period in history.

Hinduism has three principal theistic traditions founded on anthropomorphic gods. Vishnu is a loving god incarnated as Krishna; Shiva is both protective and destructive and Brahma is the creator. Saktism is a kind of worship devoted to the female partners of Vishnu and Shiva. Hindu’s venerate all forms of life, but the most sacred animal to Hindus is the cow.

Hindu worship revolves around a person’s and a family’s dedication to a particular ‘favourite’ god or group of gods. The act of worship is carried out at a shrine, which can be at home or communally in public. There are several places of pilgrimage including the Ganges in northern India.

The three main festivals are Dipavali – the ‘festival of lights’ – which sacred to Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity; Holi, a spring festival and Dashara, a harvest festival.

Hinduism is the oldest of the world’s prolific religions. It is most widespread in India, which has outlawed the ancient caste system of Hinduism. This caste system used to segregate society into five foremost groups: brahmins were leaders, philosophers and artists; kshatriyas were princes, soldiers and administrators; vaishyas were merchants and landowners; shudras were labourers and the rest were outcasts or untouchables.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many topics but is currently involved with Easter.If you would like to read more, please go over to our website entitled Celebrating Easter

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Paper From Past To Future

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

This remarkable invention is certainly among the greatest advances in technology. Made from natural cellulose fibers and binders, paper has applications in many industries. Paper has a warmth of hue and feel that impart an intrinsic beauty. The industry of papermaking still has a large element of art. This remarkable product has a long and successful history and it appears it will be around for a long time to come.

The beauty and value of this tool can be seen through its history. One could say that without it, there might be less history to study. After its invention in China around 100 B. C., it grew in popularity as a tool for recording important statistics, and philosophy. Like any new technology, it is probable that this new writing medium increased in quality while it decreased in price over time.

This material is strong, it makes a good insulator, and it can be made from a variety of cellulose fibers and with a variety of colors and textures. It is used in wide applications in various industries. Manufacturing, construction, crafters and artisans all make good use of its qualities.

Many readers would agree that there is just “that certain something” about curling up with a good – paper – book. Something about the smell, the feel, the way the light interacts adds to the experience of reading.

Whether you dabble at papermaking at home, are an artisan, or a huge industrial manufacturer the act of making the product can be as beautiful as the product itself. The art of getting the right texture, or absorbency, or colors, or strength and so on is still alive and well.

Paper is a useful and beautiful material that has stood the test of time, played a large part in recording history and brought literacy to millions. This material is so versatile and has such an emotional appeal to consumers, that it will continue to form a bridge between past and future for a long time to come.

Metallic paper is becoming more popular. Whatever your paper needs are, we could have it just for you right now – come see.

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A Brief History Of Christianity

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

The majority of Christians have faith in that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Israel, the son of Jewish parents, Mary and Joseph, a carpenter, who had travelled from Nazareth to meet their annual taxes. Mary gave birth, so the story goes, on the 25th December in a stables and Christian countries mark that as the start of their calendar, in a similar way that Buddhists and Muslims mark the birth of their spiritual leaders as the beginning of their calendars.

However, not very much is actually known about Jesus and nothing is known about him from his own hand. The nearest we can get to him are books or gospels written some time after his death by alleged disciples. He was probably not born in the year one, or dot as it should have been, but four years earlier.

There is little to nothing known about him for the first thirty years of his life and then when he was thirty-two he was baptized by John the Baptist. Being Jewish himself, John the Baptist was continually on the look out for the Messiah and he saw Jesus as that Messiah.

Jesus was unlike other ministers of the time in that he worked chiefly among the poor, although it is very doubtful that he came from a deprived family himself. He was after all from the House of David, the ruling royal family of the day and age.

Within a few years of ministering to the poor and proclaiming himself the son of God, he was arrested by the Roman and Jewish ruling class and, as most Christians believe, crucified. After three days he arose from the dead and after forty days his spirit went up into Heaven to sit at the right hand of his father, God.

Christians see their Bible as an extension of Judaism rather than a denial or a breaking away from it. It is to be expected that the first followers of Jesus were ostracized by traditional Jewish leaders as a break-away sect and in many ways that is what Christianity still is to this day, although it now has more followers than Judaism.

The Christian Bible is in two sections, the Old Testament, which correlates to the Jewish Bible or Masorah and the New Testament, which relates to the time after Jesus’ birth which is not included in the Masorah.

The most important part of the New Testament by far is the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each of these gospels shows Jesus, his life and his teachings from the personal standpoint of the writer, each having been one of Jesus’ apostles.

The foundation of Christian belief is: 1] that Jesus was the personification of God on Earth; 2] atonement – ie that Jesus’ death atoned for the sins of all mankind in eternity, so we can all go to Heaven; 3] that the one God has three aspects: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

After that it gets a bit complex.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many topics but is currently concerned with Easter.If you would like to read more, please go over to our web site entitled Celebrating Easter

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How Do Car GPS Navigation Systems Work?

Saturday, June 11th, 2011

Contemporary auto navigation systems are really excellent. Have you ever considered acquiring one? Those who do not have or have never had a contemporary auto navigation system, or GPS (Global Positioning System) as it is also called. will almost certainly not realize quite how much knowledge they provide. It is no longer just an item to stop you from getting lost whilst you are travelling from A to B.

Far from it. Modern GPS systems will tell you when you are passing monuments, sites of historical importance or beauty, churches, hotels, restaurants, pubs, garages, petrol stations, airports and practically anything else that you want it to inform you about. They have moved on from being only an on screen map to being a tour guide and much more..

If you are thinking of getting a GPS auto navigation system, it is worth learning a bit about how they operate, so that you can better understand what they do, what they are capable of doing and how they do it. This is useful knowledge for when it comes to choosing which system to decide on, because not all GPS systems are the same and some present more features than others.

All auto GPS navigation systems use satellites to help them work out their position. (This is not always the case with boats, because some water ways use land-based tracking stations).

The GPS is like a radio receiver, so it picks up signals from overhead satellites and processes that data in order to determine where it is. In order to do this job properly, it needs the signals from three satellites.

This is called triangulation and is very accurate, frequently to within a metre or a yard. However, in order to ensure even more accuracy, the data from a fourth satellite is used as a check. There is very little scope for error if four satellites are being employed for pin-pointing a location.

A GPS device will tell you which way to go and if you go off route, it will advise you the best manner for going back to the correct road. However it will also do more than that. Before you begin out on your journey from A to B, you have to enter those two locations.

The GPS will then ask you whether you would like to go by the quickest road, the most scenic route or whether you would like to avoid motorways altogether.

This is a great role, but it can do more than that too. If you sort in the name of a restaurant along the way or a monument you would like to see, it will steer you from A to B via your place of interest.

One last point, be sure that the system that you buy is upgradeable. Some are upgraded automatically, but you have to pay a monthly or annual fee. Others will sell you an upgrade which you have to install yourself. If you are comfortable with making your own upgrades, all well and good, but just be aware that systematically upgrading the software is vital.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with how to get Stapletons tyres. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Car Tyres For Sale.

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