Today's law enforcement agencies can take advantage of the newest technological advances in many different ways. Not only can those who fight crime have access to devices that seem to come right out of James Bond spy movies, they can use equipment similar to what's used on television's CSI drama series.
Manufacturers of the latest in police gear have announced some surprising inventions that are now available, but perhaps still a little difficult to get. However, within a year these devices should be easily accessible, and within a few they may even be ?standard issue? for many police departments.
Many seasoned police veterans may wonder what could possibly be new with regards to flashlights to make their job easier. Well, heavy duty flashlights and tactical flashlights used by police can now do more than shed light on a scene or a perpetrator.
Since LED police flashlights are the tool of choice in many areas, some companies have simply focused on making them even more dependable and sturdy than they already are. They've been dropping the flashlights from 30 feet to test durability, submerging them to check for an ability to stay waterproof, and timing not only the shining time, but the overall life time of the batteries. There are now dozens of suppliers of police flashlights that provide specific product specifications, including the wattage, lumens, scope of light, and hazardous condition defense.
As with any product, however, the best thing to do is to determine local and user needs and compare what's available to what the budget may allow. Some tactical or heavy duty flashlights may cost as little at $40 each, but some can go up to $200-not including battery chargers, holsters, clips for attaching to clothes or duty belts, or built-in extras.
The most important aspects of police flashlights would be ease of use and dependability, since they must continuously function under high-risk conditions. Certain LED models claim hundreds of hours of light use, convenient on/off buttons, and an almost indefinite life span.
Even though all offer consistent light without dimming, LED flashlights can vary by size and weight. Some officers may prefer the lighter ones, while others may prefer the heavier, as they then can be used as a weapon. One department may wish to use only the high-intensity white LED light bulbs, while another city's force may wish to utilize the advantages of colored LED bulbs for night vision, checking blood trails, or signaling.
It's clear that different police departments, and even different officers within the same city, could face a range of dangerous situations. These call for specialty police flashlights. Almost every officer would be able to utilize a flashlight that can cut through smoke and offer adjustable beams of light, but there may not be as frequent a need for the more upgraded features on a regular basis.
There is a model that contains a pepper-spray canister, a flashlight that can detect metal (vibrating and flashing a red light when encountering metal), one that creates glow-in-the-dark patterns, and even styles which provide beacon or strobe-light effects. Plus, to further enhance weaponry, police flashlights are now providing laser-aiming devices, gun mounting capabilities, and shotguns hidden within the flashlights? bodies.
A police department which is considering flashlight replacement should take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade; never before have so many features been available.
~Ben Anton, 2008
Since web development is constantly evolving, each new release of web programs like Dreamweaver tend to contain features which are introduced in response to changes and new technologies in the way websites are constructed and elements that can be placed on web pages. Dreamweaver is now an Adobe product, since the acquisition of Macromedia. So let's see what Adobe have done to enhance what is probably the most widely-used web development tool in the world.
Since the release of Dreamweaver 8, way back in 2005, the use of cascading style sheets (CSS) in web page layout has become widely recognised as the way forward. However, CSS page layout coding can be a little daunting for new web designers. Dreamweaver CS3 includes a wide range of customisable CSS layouts which include useful comments for inexperienced developers explaining how the designs function. The layouts may be used not only to create individual pages but also Dreamweaver templates.
Manipulation of CSS code has also been made easier with the addition of features for reorganising styles and transferring them between style sheets. Users can now automatically transfer an inline CSS style to a style sheet or convert an embedded style sheet into an external one.
The new browser compatibility feature in Dreamweaver CS3 allows users to check for issues within their pages relating to specific browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Netscape). It creates a report explaining problems which may occur when CSS on your pages is rendered in a particular browser.
The last time Dreamweaver was upgraded, Photoshop was a rival to Macromedia's own Fireworks. Now that Dreamweaver and Photoshop are part of the same stable, Adobe has enhanced their compatibility. You can now copy a slice, selection or entire document from Photoshop, move over to Dreamweaver and paste it. This brings up a special window which enables to optimise and save the copied pixels as a new image.
As well as enhanced support for CSS, Dreamweaver now allows the inclusion of elements of the new Ajax technology which uses JavaScript to add a new level of interactivity to web pages by updating the page with elements from a server without having to reload the page. Dreamweaver's implementation of Ajax is via the Spry framework. This is a collection of JavaScript-based code which provides a simple way for web designers to add Ajax content to their pages without having to type a line of code.
Dreamweaver CS2 has several different kinds of widgets. For example, there are menus and submenus which allow developers to design complex navigation systems which would otherwise take days to code. Then there are form validation widgets which check the content entered by a user into form fields. There is also a widget for creating a tabbed interface which displays different content in the same place depending on which tab the user clicks on.
Spry effects can be applied to a wide range of HTML elements. They allow designers to have images and other page content fade, shrink, zoom etc. in response to actions carried out by the user such as moving the mouse pointer over a particular element.
Spry Data sets are JavaScript objects that display data from an XML source in an HTML table. There is also a useful drill-down capability whereby users can click on summary information displayed in rows of a table to display detailed information in another region of the page.
Adobe has not forgotten Mac users in this upgrade either. Dreamweaver CS3 now has Intel-based Mac Compatibility. This makes CS3 the first version of Dreamweaver to run natively on Intel-based Macs (as well as PowerPCs).
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Both Ben Anton & Andrew Whiteman are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Ben Anton has sinced written about articles on various topics from Software, Home and Writing. Ben Anton writes from his home in Portland, Oregon.Want more information on