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November 5, 2009

Dell's Adamo XPS laptop: unboxing and hands-on

Representatives from Dell Inc. visited the American-Statesman this morning an hour before unveiling to the world the new Adamo XPS laptop.

We’ve seen glimpses of the laptop before, most notably at Austin City Limits festival, but this was the first time I’ve gotten my hands on it and see it up close.

The laptop is only 9.99mm thick and, design-wise it’s breathtaking. The entire bottom half of the laptop folds into a recess in front of the 13.4”-inch screen. The slim computer starts at $1,799 and that gets you 4 Gigabytes of DDR3 memory, a 1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a 128-GB solid-state drive, Wireless-N and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit edition installed.

The most interesting design characteristic of the Adamo XPS is that the keyboard rises on a hinge to give it an angled profile. I pressed against the keyboard and it has a bit of give — it doesn’t seem too stiff, but at the same time, despite its aluminum construction, I’d be worried about putting too much weight on it. At the very least, it’s a good way to wean yourself off of laying your palms below the keyboard, as I tend to do with my Macbook.

In any case, here’s a video where you can make your own impressions on the ambitiously designed little laptop from Dell:

Image from Dell’s Flickr stream.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Gadgets

October 21, 2009

Digital Contrarian: Five ways Microsoft could still screw up Windows 7

The reviews are in and the news is good for Microsoft: the latest version of its operating system, “Windows 7,” hits stores Thursday and tech reviewers seem smitten with “7.” The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, CNet and others have bestowed praise on it. The snarky gadget site Gizmodo.com used the headline, “Windows 7 Review: You Can Quit Complaining Now.”

On the praise, I can’t disagree. Microsoft sent us a 64-bit copy of “Windows 7 Ultimate” several weeks ago and after a fear-filled ordeal getting my Windows XP desktop ready for the hard drive wipe and migration, I’m a happy camper. “Windows 7” is Microsoft’s attempt at a do-over on its last major revision, Windows Vista, which debuted in early 2007. I avoided the public-relations disaster that was Vista on the advice of negative reviews and friends who used it and grew frustrated with its quirks and sluggish performance.

For me on a pretty high-end PC, “Windows 7” runs fast, doesn’t crash, handles all the software I was running before with a minimum of compatibility issues, and is a big leap forward in attractive, streamlined design. I like the way hovering over a taskbar icon brings up a tiny preview of open windows. I like that I can shake a window and make every other Window on the desktop disappear. I find myself using my Windows 7 PC more often than I used to as it feels, in general, less frustrating to deal with. My MacBook is probably pretty jealous.

That being said, “Windows 7” could still go awry for Microsoft, a company that knows a thing or two about taking a good thing and running it into the ground. There is the matter of Apple, a company that just had its best financial quarter ever and that has all but convinced the buying public that its Mac computers are hipper and smarter than PCs.

“Windows 7” is good, but is it good enough to make people go out and buy new PCs (or bother upgrading their XP or Vista machines)? Here are five ways Microsoft could still lose with “Windows 7’:

1. Continuing to confuse customers — As it did with Vista, Microsoft released multiple versions of “7” with names like, “Starter,” “Home Premium,” “Business” and “Ultimate,” all with different prices, different features and different target audiences. It’s a horrible strategy, and one that serves no one but Microsoft. Release one great version of “Windows 7” and price it fairly for the broadest possible audience. It worked for Apple with the September release of “Snow Leopard,” an update to its Mac OS operating system, which works on all Apple computers that are currently sold.

2. Tone-deaf marketing and advertising — Microsoft had a point with its “Laptop hunter” TV commercials, focusing on the price differences between Macs and some Windows PCs. But the commercials came across as shrill and whiny. Most Windows ads only serve to remind people how much better Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads are. And a recent attempt to get people to throw “Windows 7” launch parties for a copy of the OS felt desperate and sad. Microsoft has a great spokeswoman in pint-sized, 4-year-old “Kylie.” Microsoft would do well to stick with Kylie and quit bringing up Apple in its ads.

3. Not wooing XP users — There are many more Windows XP users than Vista users, but Microsoft had made it much harder for those with Windows XP to upgrade. In my case, I had to do a full backup, erase my hard drive and reinstall all of my software, a process that took me an entire week. Microsoft suggests XP users buy a new PC instead; ha ha, good one, Microsoft. The company needs to convince XP users that “Windows 7” is worth the hassle without trying to extract more money out of people’s wallets.

4. Losing the virus war — The more people who get “Windows 7,” the more chance you’ll see viruses and malware that specifically targets vulnerabilities unique to this new operating system. One major virus outbreak targeting it could wipe out Microsoft’s credibility on security in “Windows 7.” They’d do well to keep working to make its security airtight. (Or at least more secure than XP and Vista have been.)

5. Avoiding the bloat — Microsoft wisely has stripped several applications out of Windows that not everybody uses like Windows Messenger and Windows Movie Maker, making them available as optional online downloads. While some users may feel they’re getting less than they bargained for, anything that helps create a more streamlined, less cluttered interface is a step in the right direction. In future updates and patches for “Windows 7,” Microsoft needs to remember that and avoid the temptation of adding extraneous, resource-hogging features and applications that we don’t really need.

I like “Windows 7.” A lot. It’s the first time in a long while that I’ve felt the Mac operating system has some real competition for my computing time. Let’s hope Microsoft plays it smart and doesn’t find a way to mess up a good thing.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers

Apple fires across the bow before Windows 7 launch

Yesterday, Apple followed up its strongest quarterly earnings ever with a salvo of product tweaks aimed at continuing the company’s momentum going as Microsoft rolls out its new operating system, Windows 7, on Thursday.

Among the new stuff was “Magic Mouse,” a wireless computer mouse that has no physical buttons, but instead relies on the same kind of multi-touch technology users have become accustomed to on the iPhone and on the trackpads of Mac laptops.

Apple also tweaked the design of its white MacBook, making it a “Unibody” design that uses one piece of plastic for the main case (similar to the aluminum cases on its MacBook Pros.)

The iMac computer got a new design with widescreen monitors at new screen sizes (21.5” and 27”), with upgraded specs that go all the way up to a quad-core processor with an upgraded ATI graphics card (the highest-end 27” model starts at $2,000).

The Mac Mini also got some love with speed upgrades and a new “Mac Mini Server” that can be used to stream video and other content. It costs $1,000.

There were also upgrades to the company’s Time Capsule and Airport Extreme products (slight Wi-Fi speed increases from a tweaked antenna design) and a new version of the $19 Apple remote, now available in an aluminum design.

I went to check out the new products yesterday at the Apple Store at the Domain, but unfortunately, none were on the floor. The new MacBooks had arrived, a store associate told me, but they weren’t on display yet. The other products, including Magic Mouse were still being shipped to the store.

The mouse is certainly tantalizing (if it works as promised), but these are mostly small upgrades designed to make those considering a new Windows 7 PC think twice. And they should — although I’m a fan of Windows 7 (I’ll have a full review posted by tomorrow), Mac OS is still a powerful, refined operating system and with every hardware refresh, Apple makes its Macs more desirable at their respective prices.

If you’re shopping for a new PC or Mac, there’s no sense in rushing. Wait a week or two and see what kind of offers the Windows 7 rollout brings and take a look at Apple’s new crop. It’s a pretty good time to buy a computer, but we’ll probably be seeing even better deals from both sides before the holidays.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Shopping

October 15, 2009

Michael Dell and I agree on something

Although Dell recently slipped to No. 3 in the list of the world’s top PC manufacturers (HP tops the heap and Acer just passed the Round Rock-based company), the company’s CEO Michael Dell is pretty bullish.

In a recent Silicon Valley dinner appearance, he said he’s confident Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 7 (out Oct. 22) will will change people’s attitudes.

“… if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It’s a dramatic improvement,” he said.

Love! That’s a strong word.

However, with some reservations, I agree with him. Since I went through the process of upgrading my main desktop computer to Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit), I’ve had smooth sailing and good performance.

I find myself using that computer more than my trusty Macbook lately, even though the desktop is upstairs, away from our main living area and bedrooms. Software installations I was dreading have gone off without a hitch and even a tricky remote networking setup my wife needed to install to do some telecommuting worked flawlessly.

All the pain I was prepared for in a new, bug-filled OS have failed to materialize.

Does that mean I’m in love? It’s too early to tell, but I can say with confidence that I’m deeply In LIke with Windows 7. Microsoft has a tendency for over-reach and there’s still time for them to mess up a good thing with bad marketing or patches that introduce quirks.

And I’m recounting my experience on a very high-end PC whose hardware has been tweaked for gaming bliss. Less clear is how well Win7 will hold up on feeble netbooks or older computers that aren’t as speedy under the hood.

If they stay on track and have a good launch, though, it will be very easy for PC owners with the right hardware to feel even more affection for 7.

I’ll have a full write-up on it next week.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Computers

October 5, 2009

AMD and Dell show off new tech backstage at ACL

While Austin City Limits festgoers were preoccupied with mud and music, Dell and AMD were both schmoozing clients and showing off some of their wares behind the scenes at their respective stages.

As reported previously, Dell early on Friday kicked off the fest by announcing a partnership with Napster to provide a year of streaming music and free MP3 downloads on certain laptops sold this holiday season.

The company also talked up its Design Studio and gave a sneak peek (but allowed no photos or video) of the next generation of its Adamo slim laptop. Dell reps hinted that the new version could be here sooner than anyone thinks, perhaps before the end of the year. The silver prototype I saw was certainly thin and light, but the company didn’t allow any hands-on time.

Over at the AMD area, the company touted its new generation of video cards which will allow up to six monitors to be hooked up at once. The current gen is a mix of DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI connections. On hand was a three-monitor setup (video below) showing off what such a setup can do for flight and racing games.

There was also a home theater setup using an AMD-powered home theater PC (HTPC), powering Windows Media Center.

Below are some snapshots from the fest:

Reps from Dell discuss Design Studio (designs from it are posted behind them).

Dell laptops of all sizes adorned the tables backstage.

Winners of Dell’s Sound and the Jury band competition, Bright Light Social Hour.

AMD shows off a home theater PC powered by its hardware.

Three-monitor setup and a racing wheel. Fun!

One of AMD/ATI’s newest video card is exposed to the world, naked and powerful, in this gaming rig.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Movies & DVDs, TV, Videogames

October 2, 2009

Dell intros Napster service for PC buyers

Backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival, Dell Inc. announced a deal with Napster to provide a year of streaming music service and 60 free MP3s from the music company’s library on some new PCs.

Dell said the deal with begin in late October with computers purchased at Best Buy and will be rolled out on Dell.com in November. Inspiron and Studio laptops will be included, but the company didn’t specify if it will be included on cheaper laptops like the Dell Mini line.

Buyers will be able to stream music for one year from Napster for a year and will be able to download 60 songs from the service. An icon for Napster will be pre-loaded on these PCs.

Also backstage at ACL, Dell gave a sneak peak at the next generation of its super-slim Adamo laptop and touted its Design Studio line. It also talked up Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour, the winner of this year’s Sound and the Jury contest, which the company sponsored.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Applications, Austin, Computers, Shopping

September 29, 2009

The Linkdown for Tuesday, Sept. 29

The Linkdown already has Fall TV fatigue and it’s only been about a week of new shows. The DVR just can’t keep up. In other technology challenges and opportunities:

AT&T is launching a texting-while-driving education initiative. (They are against it, in case you’re wondering.) It coincides with a big texting/driving summit that starts tomorrow. We couldn’t agree more.
“Hi, How Are You?” is now an iPhone app. Daniel Johnston fans rejoice.
Disney has launched a digital initiative for children’s books, including this snazzy Web site.
“Ultima Online” is turning 12 and EA has cranked up another “Return to Britannia” campaign.
The Nintendo Wii dropped to $199 on Sunday. It’s a holiday game console price war!
On NPR’s All Tech Considered this week: an amazing Carl Sagan Auto-Tune video, iPhone MMS, a Facebook movie and Microsoft’s awful house party video.
Yahoo! continues to make big search tweaks.
Another site embraces online music learning — this site teacher piano.
Austin’s Gendai Games offers an early-access program for would-be iPhone game developers, GameSalad.
The Round Rock Public Library has added a new digital map collection for its patrons.
It’s a mustache. For your dog!
The ChannelAustin Digital Fusion Fest is coming up on Oct. 10.
An easy way to turn your YouTube videos into animated GIFs.
Dropped an electronic device into water? Here’s a way to dry it out for $20.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Computers, Internet, Phones, Shopping, Videogames

September 28, 2009

Overprepared or just smart upgrading? Prepping for Windows 7

I have come out the other side of the Windows XP-to-Windows 7 transition unscathed, happy and completely safe.

This might not seem like a big deal to Windows power users who routinely tweak their systems for maximum performance and regularly perform hardware upgrades or clean installations of Windows every few months to make sure things are running optimally.

That’s not me. My wife and I both use our desktop computer and though it’s been three years since we last upgraded the hardware on the machine, it was still running like a champ at speeds of 3.2-Gigahertz (via a dual-core processor) using Windows XP.

I approached Windows 7 cautiously, installing it first as a Boot Camp partition on my Apple Macbook. It ran smoothly and I liked it so much I decided that I would make the leap to it on the desktop machine, something I’d resisted during the long, dark time PC users call the Windows Vista era.

When Microsoft sent me an early copy of the final software and I decided to review it for work (I’ll be writing something up closer to the October 22 launch), the die was cast. It was time to upgrade. I was terrified.

Installing Windows 7 on a Windows Vista machine is simply a matter of upgrading. But coming from Windows XP requires a completely fresh installation (if you want to make sure you don’t run into major problems down the road), something Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg called “Frustrating, tedious and painful.”

So I prepared for pain. Over-prepared, perhaps. Here’s what I did:

Clear out the deadwood: The first thing I did was start uninstalling old video games and applications I haven’t used in ages. Some programs were so old they wouldn’t even uninstall properly, so I just deleted folders and did my best to get rid of anything that wasn’t vital and that wasn’t going to get reinstalled in Windows 7.

Do a full backup: Once I got my computer to a state relatively close to what I wanted on Windows 7, I used my backup software to do a complete backup of my computer’s hard drives. Only the C: drive would be wiped out in my migration, but I backed up everything anyway just to be safe. Everything was duplicated in full file/folder structure to my Drobo backup device. Some backup programs compress your files, but I wanted complete access to all the files and folders in case anything should go wrong.

Make a list: I made a list on a sheet of paper of every program that would need to be re-installed in Windows 7, from Microsoft Office 2007 to iTunes to games. The list took up almost a whole page. Some programs — like Studio 12, a video-editing program I use — allow you to find an activation number of product key in their help menu. For any numbers like that, I wrote them down on the paper. After Windows 7 was up and running, I crossed off each program as I reinstalled them one at a time.

Backup to the backup: Some programs, including iTunes and Google’s Picasa photo software, allow you to make a backup of your program’s library. iTunes 9 allows you consolidate all your music, TV shows and other files into one big iTunes directory. Once you’ve done that, you can backup that entire library to a CD or DVD. If your library is bigger than what will fit on one of those devices (mine was), you can just copy the entire iTunes directory to an external hard drive. I used such a drive (separate from the Drobo) to backup iTunes, my playlists and iTunes library files. I also did that for my Picasa photo library and for a few other programs that create their own database (like the program I use to scan in business cards, NeatWorks.) I also backed up browser bookmarks, e-mail and any other files I thought I might need right away to that second external drive. Overkill, maybe, but I was making sure I had a plan in case anything happened with the Drobo (say, if Windows 7 had trouble recognizing it).

Uninstall/deactivate more programs: I deauthorized iTunes on my computer, uninstalled Office 2007 and cleared out any other program I could think of that might have a licensing issue upon reinstallation. This process took a while and was the point of no return.

Use the Windows Migration Tool: The Windows 7 disc comes with a very handy application called Windows Easy Transfer (it’s “migsetup.exe” in the support\Migwiz directory). Using that program, you can transfer Windows profiles, data files, program settings, browser bookmarks and other information. I used this to transfer just my basic settings and user profiles to the external drives. It worked well. Once Windows 7 was up, even my desktop wallpaper was back, along with my desktop files, browser settings and my wife’s separate Windows account. This might have been overkill given the other steps I’d taken, but it made me feel better to have those files and settings available.

Take a deep breath: Once all that was done, I took a long, deep breath, slipped in the Windows 7 disc and installed. I cleared out the entire hard drive (you can choose to let the old files co-exist with Windows on the drive, but it’s not recommended) and waited. Just 30 minutes later, Windows 7 was up and I started putting everything back in place.

And… it wasn’t a disaster! I’ll go into more detail about my experiences with Win7 in my full review, but I can report that the steps I took were more than adequate to get everything back in order. My wife’s Thunderbird e-mails and account were restored without fuss. iTunes re-imported all my music and files. Picasa didn’t lose any vital family photos and the Windows Easy Transfer program worked a little too well — it restored some clutter I probably should have left behind in Windows XP.

Yes, it was a little painful. Yes, it was time consuming. I’d say the whole process took several days of off-and-on work.

But so far, I can say the effort was worth it. Nothing was lost, things are working better than they were before and most importantly, all the work I did on the front end eliminated some major stress I might have faced later if anything hadn’t gone completely according to plan.

I’m sure there are simpler ways to do it and many people wouldn’t hesitate to wipe their main drive since they keep most of their files online, but that wasn’t our situation. Maybe I worked too hard to do something pretty basic, but I’m happy nonetheless with the results.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers

August 19, 2009

Geek Squad gets in on girls in tech

Seeing first-hand what the great instructors at Girlstart do here in Austin has made me a long-time proponent of programs that introduce girls to tech.

(Having a daughter of my own has only reinforced the notion.)

Best Buy’s Geek Squad has partnered with the Girl Scouts and is holding a Summer Tech Camp this week in Austin. Running through tomorrow, the camp focuses on girls and includes activities like building computers, working with music and digital imaging, and learning about social networking and Internet safety.

About 60 students from 6th to 10th grade are participating and Geek Squad workers are volunteering for the camp.

While tech affects all our lives, middle- and high-school aged girls are especially at risk to get turned away from math- and science-based courses and careers. There’s a dearth of women in the hard tech world and programs like this are meant to encourage girls to take a look at fields like engineering and computer science.

Kudos to Geek Squad and the Girl Scouts for putting the program together. We’ll give you an update when we hear how the camp turned out.

Edited to add: photos from today’s events. Instructor Zak Holder teaches a class on “PC Build.”

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers

August 12, 2009

ISPs talk up their services at Mac User Group meeting

Last night, the Capitol Mac Users Group invited me to check out an ISP forum for its members. Internet providers including AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Verizon (which only has broadband in a limited area of Austin) and Grande Communications were invited to come to talk to the group about their broadband services and pricing and to answer questions.

It all sprang from the the April kerfuffle over Time Warner Cable’s plan to introduce tiered billing for its Road Runner service in Austin and San Antonio, among four test markets. After a strong and sustained public outcry, the company shelved the plan, but it still left a lot of questions about how the company and its competitors are going to be expanding their services and dealing with pricing in the future.

Before the evening’s event even started, there was behind-the-scenes drama: representatives from AT&T and Grande agreed to appear, but, according to the Mac User Group, Time Warner Cable backed out of the event Tuesday afternoon. Michael Sidoric, one of the directors at large of the group, said he was told the company was “having trouble locating an appropriate person to appear.”

Jason Cardwell and Michael Pace from AT&T touted the company’s wide broadband availability, AT&T’s 100,000 Internet hotspots worldwide and the availability of AT&T 3G service in 350 markets and 3G roaming in 80 countries.

They stressed that DSL Internet connections are not shared among users they way they are on cable Internet service and that they provide a free copy of McAfee security software to customers. For those eligible for U-Verse TV service bundles, fiber optic service allows for up to 18 Mbps download speeds. The company also offers 24/7 live tech support, even on holidays.

Grande representative Roberto Chang said that while Grande is limited in the areas it covers, it is rapidly expanding and takes seriously requests through its Web site for coverage in new areas. Grande has about 145,000 customers currently and offers high-speed Internet plans that start at $15.96 (when paired with TV service).

The company also offers online backup services and “Bolt,” a service that speeds up Internet downloads significantly for the first 20 or 30 seconds, a good feature for downloading files like photos and short videos.

Verizon, which offers FIOS service, was invited to participate, but did not attend. Time Warner Cable was much-discussed. Although AT&T has tested tiered broadband service in some test markets, the representative said there are no plans to roll such pricing in Austin. Grande said, as it has in the past, that it does not base its prices on Internet usage.

AT&T also touted its expanding 3G service, beefed up in Austin, which will at some point soon offer speeds as high as 7.2 Mbps to iPhone 3GS users (the older iPhone 3G is not capable of reaching those speeds). When asked about 4G (or LTE) networks, the reps said that although that’s definitely in AT&T’s future plans, there’s still plenty of headroom in 3G, which is capable of speeds of up to 20 Mbps.

Questions from Cap Mac members mostly focused on customer support (some expressed frustration with AT&T’s phone support; one member gushed about a positive experience with a Grande Communications support experience).

iPhone wireless issues were brought up — one member said he desperately wants an iPhone, but refuses to get one until it is offered through another wireless carrier. Some in the audience said they don’t live in an area where Grande service or AT&T’s U-verse is available. Both companies said they are working to expand their coverage and serve more Austin customers.

I asked about stimulus money and whether some of that might be used to reach more areas. AT&T didn’t have an answer for this, but Chang said Grande has looked into this and that many of the areas they want to reach are not considered “Rural” and don’t qualify for some of those funds.

The biggest faux pas of the night was that both companies sent representative to a meeting of Mac users equipped with Windows laptops. I’m not a marketing or PR specialist, but this would seem to be a very bad case of not playing to your audience. Several more questions from the audience focused on the perception that tech support reps often blame the Mac computers for the Internet issues the users may have. The consensus seemed to be that companies need to do a better job supporting Mac users and making sure their tech support reps are trained in Mac OS.

The Cap Mac User Group meets monthly and has a variety of SIGs (Special Interest Groups) in areas including iPhone tips, photography, audio/video and other areas.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet, Phones

July 27, 2009

Linux Against Poverty: putting old computers to good use

We’ve written about Ken Starks in this space before and the admirable work he does for the HeliOS Project.

It’s one of those amazing Austin organizations that puts a lump in my throat every time I write about it. Ken and his volunteers take computers that would otherwise go into landfills or get donated to Goodwill, get them operational and donate them to needy kids, families and non-profits that are happy to have functioning desktop and laptop computers.

One thing I still hear a lot at this late date is why techies aren’t spending less time Twittering and more time doing things for their community. Well, Austin, it’s time to put up or shut up. This Saturday, you have an opportunity to get computers in the hands of those who need them most. Starks hooked up with networking guru Lynn Bender of GeekAustin and they have organized Linux Against Poverty.

At Union Park, starting 1 p.m. Saturday, an Install Fest will accept computers from the public. There’ll even be valet pick-up; just drop that computer in your trunk, show up, and let them take over. Worried about your private data you don’t know how to wipe off the computer? Ken and Co. will wipe the hard drive for you using DBAN; they’ll even accept computers without hard drives if you’re paranoid.

Volunteers for Linux Against Poverty are talking to companies and to friends to try to get as many computers as possible for the Saturday event. Some of the computers keep disappearing, though — Starks has a hard time saying no when kids or families call asking for a donation.

“We keep getting computers and Ken keeps giving them to the kids,” Bender says, “how can you complain about that?” There are expected to be at least 40-50 systems at the Install Fest, but I’d urge you to help get the word out for many more. Among other projects Starks is working on is setting up 25 computers for a new lab at the Cristo Rey Catholic Church.

A party for VIPs and those who donate will start at Union Park at 6 p.m. If you’re a company with a bulk donation, Bender and Starks will arrange to have the PCs or laptops picked up.

They’ll continue to take computers long after the Saturday event is over.

Bender says he started Linux Against Poverty to create a link between the people he knows and the work that Starks is doing. “I had access to computers, I had access to volunteers. Nobody was interested in taking them off my hands. Ken was the missing piece.”

Once the computer data is wiped, Starks and his team install Super OS, a free, open-source derivative of Ubuntu. He loads the computers with free educational software based on what the kids need, then offers tech support afterward to families that need it.

The specs for what computers they’re looking for is on the Linux Against Poverty site and they’re even more lenient for laptops. You can still offer to volunteer, and the hope is that this goodness will spread to other cities.

To top it off, the effort will keep machines out of trash. “These were computers that were going to go to scrap,” Bender said, “they were destined for goodwill or the junkyard. We keep them out of the landfill for another two or three years.”

If you’re a techie, you’re probably surrounded by old computers or equipment you’re not using. Now’s the time to get rid of it and help the community.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers

Heads-up: Apple tablet seems increasingly likely

It’s happened before with the iPhone 3G S, Apple’s last few iPod Nano changes and even changes to its MacBook Pros: the rumor mill that used to issue wild speculation on future Apple products has increasingly gotten it right before the company’s big announcements.

So it’s getting harder to deny that Apple may be unveiling a small portable computer this fall (possibly as early as September) that would be something like an oversized iPod Touch, probably with the power of at least a comparably sized PC netbook.

Tech blogs like the ones on Wired.com have begun to accept it as a given that Apple will enter this market space soon and a report in The Financial Times suggests it ties in with Apple’s recent music industry moves, which seems to miss the point that such a device, if priced right, could be the Rolls Royce of netbooks.

Sure, a 10-inch Apple tablet would be a boon to music album art and would be a great device upon which to watch movies, but so would a 13-inch Macbook Pro. The real possibilities here would be a device that has all the utility of an iPhone or iPod Touch (minus the phone part), without a physical keyboard, but with more computing power, memory and — as long as we’re wishing — built-in mobile broadband at a reasonable price.

What do you think? Would a device like this work? Would you consider buying it if it were, say, under $700?

Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet

July 23, 2009

Windows XP to Windows 7: The rickety drawbridge ahead

Last month, I gave an optimistic view of Windows 7, Microsoft’s new operating system due out in October. I’d been playing around with the Release Candidate version of the OS, which was made freely available to try out and install.

Instead of installing it over my Windows XP system, I did the safe thing and put it on my Macbook as a Boot Camp installation, allowing me to try out Windows 7 without worrying about disturbing my Windows XP system, which runs great and is causing me no problems.

I liked Windows 7 so much, that I held out hope that there’d be some easy way to upgrade from Windows XP when the time came without having to upgrade to the operating system in the middle, Vista.

It was a futile hope, it turns out, like wishing for rainbows on your wedding day or free money at the ATM. My worst nightmare is having to wipe away my whole Windows XP system and having to start over, reinstalling all my programs and reconfiguring everything to run the way I want it to, something that has taken me literally years to do.

What’s that process going to be like? The Wall Street Journal’s tech columnist Walt Mossberg, who has been exploring the issue, says that for XP users looking to upgrade, it’s going to be, “Frustrating and tedious and painful.”

Well, (expletive).

I was hoping Microsoft might have come up with some magic bullet, perhaps involving their Windows XP mode, but it doesn’t sound like a painless upgrade path will be provided at this late date. (Unless Mossberg has so much sway that it caused Microsoft to brew up some last-minute magic.)

Well, Windows XP isn’t so bad and I guess I’ll be able to use Windows 7 on my Mac (which always seems a bit of a strange situation) until that Release Candidate version expires.

See the video below to get the sobering explanation from Mossberg.

Oh, and before you think you’re being clever by posting a comment that says, “Just get a Mac” or “install Linux!” I should warn you that I have a delete button and I know how to use it.

Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Internet

June 29, 2009

Weekend minus a laptop: not so bad, actually

Over the weekend, I was out in San Antonio for most of Saturday and on Sunday, I had some family visiting.

But even if it had been a normal weekend with the usual mix of errand-running and advanced loafing, I think this still might have happened: I found myself hardly using my laptop at all.

It used to be that the mobile computer was such a fixture on my lap that you would have thought it had merged with my legs somehow, like the shut-ins who have to be pried surgically from their couches. But over the last six months I’ve noticed myself reaching for my iPhone more and more when I have to look up something on the Web, send an e-mail or, sometimes, even view an online video (as long as it’s not Flash-based, of course).

I’ve been without my laptop before, of course — when I’ve had to send it in for repairs, I’d find myself scrambling to power up my desktop computer, which sits upstairs, out of reach in most situations.

Last week, I got an iPhone 3G S, upgrading from my first-generation iPhone. It turns out it was quite an upgrade. The 3G network is much better now than it was when I first tested out an iPhone 3G last year — it’s more reliable, seems speedier and has a wider area of coverage based on what I can tell so far.

When we were out shopping, it was never a big deal to whip out my phone and do a quick Twitter check or check e-mail with 3G.

In my house, I use the phone in Wi-Fi mode; that’s where I noticed that the speed boost on the 3G S makes Web pages load quite a bit faster and reduces a lot of the lag time on opening apps, switching from Twitter apps to e-mail or photo pages and other things that I never even noticed were slow before.

It always used to be that it was just quicker and more efficient to do things on the laptop that the phone couldn’t keep up with. Those kinds of tasks (watching a DVD of “The Wire” or doing intensive editing of audio, for instance) are becoming fewer and fewer as the phone I use seems to get faster and smarter.

Back in the late ’90s tech analysts used to tell me that at some point in the future phones were going to overtake computers as our most-used, handiest digital device. I thought that was pretty crazy.

That day is almost here.

Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Computers, Internet, Phones

June 8, 2009

Apple's new iPhone 3G S, price drops, tweaked hardware and Snow Leopard news

Update, 4:15 p.m.: A bit of confusion as to how much the new iPhone version will cost for existing iPhone 3G owners. See new blog post here.

Increasingly, rumors about Apple’s hardware moves are getting to be right on the money. It goes to show how desperate Mac fans (and, over time, many others) are for any bit of information; these days, with so many people in the chain working on Apple products, it’s inevitable there’ll be information leaks.

So it is that today, at the keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2009, the rumors about Apple’s new version of its iPhone were almost all true.

The new iPhone did indeed get a speed bump, with speedier hardware, as well as a memory upgrade: its new iPhone 3G S (the “S” is for “speed”) now comes in 16- and 32-gigabyte models for $199 and $299, respectively.

The standard iPhone 3G drops to $99, the sweet spot for cell phones; expect it to sell like digital hotcakes.

What’s in the new 3G S? A better camera, 3 megapixels, with auto focus, auto white balance and the ability to record 30-frames-per-second video. It will also load applications more quickly and has a digital compass and voice controls (to navigate to applications and control music).

It will be out June 19, two days after Apple will debut its iPhone OS 3.0, which will introduce features across all iPhones including cut and paste, universal search, “Find My Phone” to locate even a silenced phone (but only for Mobile Me users) and phone tethering, though not for AT&T users, at least not according to the presentation. Landscape typing will be introduced into more applications and more features will be made available to the developers who’ve made Apps on the iPhone such an enormous success.

It was a strange omission since 22 other carriers in other countries will support the ability to use the iPhone’s high-speed connection to get online with a laptop. The new OS will also support MMS (multimedia messages), but not until later this summer. AT&T will be late on this as other carriers will have MMS sooner.

The iPhone was the last morsel in a very long meal (the presentation lasted more than two hours), but it wasn’t the only news. Here’s some of the rest:

The 15-inch Macbook Pro got an unexpected hardware upgrade. It now includes an SD card slot, sports the same long-lasting battery as the giant 17-inch MBP. It starts at a cheaper $1,699.
In another pleasing surprise, the 13-inch aluminum Macbook earned its wings to become officially known as a Macbook Pro. It also gets the SD slot, a standard illuminated keyboard and the better battery. Best of all, it stays the same price, starting at $1,199. Apple’s regular white Macbook recently got a bump in its specs, but stays pretty much the same, for $999.
The Macbook Air got a hefty price cut, bringing it in line with the ailing economy. It is priced $1,499-$1,799, one of the most dramatic price cuts in the entire presentation.
Apple’s Snow Leopard, an upgrade to its current Leopard operating system, will be out in September for $29, or $49 for a family pack.

Those were the highlights. You can read a full blow-by-blow from one of my favorite news sources Engadget, or read NPR’s All Tech Considered take on it from Laura Sydell.

And in case you’re wondering: what would Omar do?

I’ve held on to my first-generation iPhone in hopes of a memory bump and this was it. I plan to get the $299 iPhone 3G S. It’ll replace my 30-gigabyte iPod (finally!) and I’ll join the 3G network, probably handing off my iPhone to my wife, who says she doesn’t need access to high-speed Internet outside the house.

Similarly, I’ll probably upgrade to an aluminum 13-inch Macbook (excuse me, Macbook Pro now) in a few months and hand off my older white Macbook to my wife as well. Her old iBook G4 is aging rapidly and its battery is dead and gone.

$29 seems like a very good price for Snow Leopard, which Apple says will be leaner and meaner than the current OS, but is not the major transition that Leopard was from OS X Tiger. I’ll probably wait until it’s out and get it pre-installed on a new Macbook and buy the upgrade for my current Macbook, then hand off to my wife.

Everybody wins! At least in my house, I hope.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Gadgets, Phones

May 21, 2009

Seven higher-ed tech trends: The Horizon Report

Yesterday, I had a chance to visit the VisLab at the University of Texas at Austin for a presentation on The Horizon Report, an annual write-up from the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative.

The 2009 report (PDF) looks at technology and is meant “to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations.”

The presentation at UT was by Laurence F. Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium

You can check out the full write-up in the report above, but here were the seven “Metatrends,” in handy list form:

Computing in three dimensions — this includes 3-D visualizations, 3-D printing, interactive gaming (say, “Second Life”) and any other applications of 3-D graphical technology.
Serious games — Again, using “Second Life” as an example, we’re looking at the concept of using games for education, for artistic expression or using gaming spaces in social ways.
Intuitive, seamless interfaces — Virtual guitars, the Nintendo Wii and the iPhone are all examples of devices with interfaces that don’t require a manual. Increasingly gadgets will be pick-up-and-play, requiring very little instruction and using the less-is-more design aesthetic. The Amazon Kindle is another example of an instantly-understandable tech tool.
User content — Rather than relying on static Web pages presenting information, we’re increasingly interacting with online content that is dynamic. Crowdsourced Google Maps (say, with geographical information or supplemental videos from the masses), artistic remixes of existing content and YouTube videos are all examples of this.
Collective intelligence — Similar to crowdsourcing, it’s the way that information from varying sources can improve existing information. Tacit collective intelligence is, as Johnson describes, “Stuff that’s just out there.” Explicit collective intelligence includes Wikipedia; it’s information that is purposely put on the Web to increase knowledge. And then there’s the semantic Web, which attaches meaning and context to information. The Web site TripIt, which organizes data to build you an itinerary, is an example of this.
The network is everywhere — Beyond just the Internet “cloud” concept, this is what happens when cell phones are more pervasive than electricity. The world’s cell phone technology often trumps ours in the U.S. and more than a billion phones are manufactured every year.
The people are the network — As Johnson explains it, “Instead of organizing the network around files of folder, we’re now organizing around people.” Knowing not only who we are, but who we are connected to, networks can assess credibility, something that could greatly improve security and allow people to connect with others even more easily.

Johnson said after the presentation that these are trends to watch over the next five years, and that while these remain similar to ones the Horizon Project has cited in the past, the nature of what they mean and how the tech tools are being used changes from year to year.

Laurence F. Johnson

Some of the tech demos on display during the presentation at the VisLab.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Videogames

May 5, 2009

Windows 7 pre-release install rules as complicated as you'd expect

Today marks the release of Microsoft Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) a step up from the beta version that was released earlier this year. You can download it here, direct from Microsoft.

What’s Windows 7? It’s the next version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, released after the very controversial Windows Vista, which has quite a few detractors. As one techie I follow on Twitter said today, “Can we just pretend Vista never happened?”

Windows 7 has gotten good early buzz for being faster and friendlier than Vista, even in its early form. The RC version is open to anyone who wants to download it and will work until June 1, 2010. You also won’t be able to upgrade from the RC to a final version of Windows 7 when it’s released. (At least, that’s what Microsoft says. Expect plenty of techies to find ways around that limitation when the time comes).

So, it’s certainly not a free operating system, and there’s no guarantees it will work the way you want it to, but if you’re feeling lucky, you can give it a spin on a test machine or as a second boot on your computer.

I’m certainly not planning to upgrade from my very stable copy of Windows XP anytime soon, but I do plan to install it as a Boot Camp partition on my Macbook to give it a whirl.

So, what do you need to know? Wired has a good setup guide that answers quite a few questions. Dwight Silverman over at the Houston Chronicle did a live chat today on the subject. And the ever-helpful Lifehacker has a guide to upgrading from XP, Vista or the earlier beta version of Windows 7.

It turns out Microsoft doesn’t really encourage upgrading from anything except Vista SP 1, There’s also the question of whether you really need to burn the image to a DVD or if you can install straight from your hard drive. Just a few questions justifying why all these guides are popping up online.

Also, there seems to be an issue on whether all Intel chips can run Windows 7’s Windows XP emulation mode. You might want to check that out it you’re running an Intel processor.

Planning to install it? Let me know here in the comments.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Internet

April 7, 2009

Solid state is amazing: must-see video

Check this out, y’all. I saw it a few weeks ago and forgot to post it here. Behold the future of hard drives: solid-state RAID.

I think I just cried a little.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Computers, Internet

March 31, 2009

Conficker: How terrified should you be that your computer will explode tomorrow?

Hey, calm down, don’t worry. That headline is what we in the news industry call a “Love Handle Grabber.” It is a headline that pulls you in by the excess tissue around the gut and begs that you take a closer look lest you fall into some sort of dark peril you cannot escape if you ignore the story attached to it.

Sometimes we also put underwear ads in the paper to get your attention.

27363820.thb.jpg So, what is “Conficker?” Apart from sounding like it should be “Cornficker” and is missing the letter “R,” it is a computer worm that strikes at Windows computers. If you have a Mac, you should be safe and can stop reading right here (unless you are using Boot Camp or other software to run Windows on your Mac).

Conficker is a wily little computer worm that comes in several variants. Though it was first detected last year, there’s been increasing concern and speculation that the worm may do some damage tomorrow, on April 1, as it waits for instructions from hackers.

But lest you panic, even the security experts at McAfee, one of the most respected antivirus companies, say that the April 1 attention may be misleading. No one’s really sure exactly what Conficker will do tomorrow, if anything.

Nevertheless, it never hurts to do a virus scan and make sure your Windows machine isn’t already infected. All the major antivirus companies have been out ahead of Conficker and there are certainly ways to clear it off your system. You should also have the latest Microsoft security updates installed.

Here’s McAfee’s excellent summary of Conficker, including steps on how to remove it if you are infected.

One of the wily things about Conficker is that it can block access to the very sites you’ll need if you get hit tomorrow.

Dave Marcus, Director of Security Research and Communications for McAfee’s Avert Labs said in an e-mail, “One of the symptoms of the Conficker worm is that it blocks access to Web sites of Internet security companies. A pretty good indication of whether your computer has been infected is to try and visit McAfee’s Web site. If the site won’t load, you will need to clean your infected computer by searching for McAfee Avert Labs Stinger tool on the Internet. You should also install Microsoft’s patch to prevent the worm from reinstalling itself.”

Want a second opinion? BitDefender also has some free software and info you can use to rid yourself of the foul Conficker before there’s trouble. You can download their Conficker removal tool here.

As usual with these things, use common sense and don’t panic.

(By the way, if you want to read an overblown, alarmist take on Conficker, which goes so far as to compare it to a sleeper cell, check out this 60 Minutes piece. It does little to prove that anything in the article, including a woman’s identity theft woes, is directly tied to Conficker. Viruses and worms are scary, but so is freaking people out over something that has a fairly easy fix.)

Bonus reading: if you’re more technically inclined than me, you’ll be fascinated by the Honeynet Project, which is tracking Conficker and posting very cool updates on what’s known so far.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: Computers, Internet

March 24, 2009

The Linkdown returns for Tuesday, March 24

You can’t see this (thank goodness), but I’m doing deep knee bends and wrist rotations in order to try to recover some muscle memory of the last time we did a Linkdown around here.

Has it really been that long? It must be because my Linkdown e-mail folder has gotten fat and lazy. It needs some exercise. Here we go:

Down economy? Job seeking? The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is looking for a Director of Interactive Services. You can find out how to apply here.
Speaking of which, yesterday’s NPR All Tech Considered segment was about online job hunting and what recruiters are looking for. I had background help from local experts Kim Haynes and Caroline Valentine.
Although it’s not listed on their Web site, PopCap Games has released a version of the game “Bookworm” for iPhone. If you’re a word nerd and you’ve played it on PC, I don’t have to tell you what this means for your productivity levels. They shall plummet.
Do you have trouble understanding rap? Well, grandpa, this Web site may help.
This was pitched to me before South by Southwest Interactive, but it might still be relevant if you go out a lot: an iPhone app called “Have2p” which tells you… well, it tells you where to go when you have to go (image at the bottom of this entry).
This 8-terrabyte home storage device is like something out of my wildest, most wonderful dreams.
D.C. Comics and Six Flags are working together on an alternate reality game (ARG) set in the Superman mythos. Web sites involved include Lex Luthor’s Clawshun Industries, Jimmy Olsen’s blog, Jimmy’s Twitter account and The Daily Planet.
If this OnLive thing for PC gaming on the cheap actually works, it’s going to change everything.
Yes, Steve Wozniak is still dancing (badly) and surviving on “Dancing With the Stars.” His online support may have something to do with that.
Rachel Muir has long been one of our favorite Austin tech people with her involvement in Girlstart. We wish her well on her new adventure. Congratulations to new interim executive director Julie Shannan.
Lively Animoto videos from South by Southwest Interactive.
iTunes now rents/sells HD movies. Not surprising, but still good news.
Ever wanted an Undo Send feature in your e-mail? Gmail has got your back (for about five seconds, at least).
Pearl Jam’s album “Ten” is now on Rock Band.
Alamo Drafthouse Village wows us with tantalizing 4K digital projection. We are so there, man.

The “Have2P” iPhone app — good for emergencies.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Computers, Internet, SXSW 2009, Videogames

February 13, 2009

Predictions for the new Microsoft-branded stores

Apple has shown how to sell consumer products in a stylish, inviting way at retail. Sony… not so much. (Don’t even get me started on Circuit City.)

Word is out that Microsoft is looking to expand on its recent touchy-feely ad campaign to reach out in a more significant way to customers; it will open Microsoft stores. No word yet on how many or where, but based on years of experience using Microsoft products, I have a few guesses of what the in-store experience might be like:

Even at closing time, the Microsoft Store will sometimes refuse to shut down completely.
Customers will be leery of shopping in the most recently added department of the store.
Every time you touch something, a security guards asks you if you really want to be doing that.
Display merchandise will be obscured by Aero-brand glass.
You may not be able to see it by looking at the aisles, but dozens of unnecessary activities are happening just out of view, all the time.
You will have the option of shopping at six different kinds of Microsoft Stores, from the Home store to the Ultimate Professional Store. They will all have different prices.
You may need to buy all new clothes to shop at the Microsoft Store.
Children can be dropped off and terrified at Clippy’s Playpen.
Games for Windows department has map to GameStop’s Xbox 360 section.
Music and movies you buy at Microsoft Store may stop working for you at home should the Microsoft Store go through a major renovation in the future.
New clerks employed at Microsoft Store may seem more sluggish or lethargic than ones you’ve dealt with in the past, especially if you try to play a game with one of them.
The Microsoft Store has much more merchandise in it than you will ever want or need.
Free Zune with every purchase.
Free Zune with every free Zune.

(With help from the ever-helpful Glark.)

Got more predictions? Post them in the comments.

Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Shopping

February 5, 2009

Visiting AMD, talking chips

As I mentioned in the previous entry, I made a visit to AMD’s southwest Austin campus today as part of the AMD Unprocessed online video series.

You can still see the full video by clicking on “Turn Me On” and then clicking the “On Demand” button at the bottom. The whole video is about 30 minutes and features me talking to Simon Solotko about AMD’s Dragon platform, how some modders overclocked a Phenom II processor to an astounding 6.5 Gigahertz using liquid helium and some of the company’s new software for tweaking, organizing your PC’s media and getting rid of all the Windows Vista overhead to get the most gaming performance.

Except for the part at the very beginning where my ginormous forehead almost shorted out the feed, I thought it went well. I’m always leery of walking into a situation that might be seen as promoting a specific company, but the ground rules were that I could ask any questions I liked related to the topic of the video session. And since I hadn’t had an opportunity to visit the AMD campus since it moved to the Southwest Parkway, it was a chance for me to see what the company, which employs about 2,300-2,400 in the area, is up to. And the truth is, like almost any other longtime PC gamer, I’ve used used both Intel and AMD products in my system builds, and both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards. I’m incredibly price-sensitive and voracious in reading reviews when I’m upgrading a part of my computer, so I’ve always been entertained by the arms race in graphics cards and processors. My current computer us a mix of ATI graphics, Intel CPU and a hodgepodge of other parts.

What I came away with is that AMD is pushing on the advantages of having an all-AMD system, via its Dragon platform. The company is making Crossfire, it’s multi-graphics card standard, easier to use across varying graphics cards. And its software is attempting to give gamers, PC hardware enthusiasts and those interested in faster digital media playing more tools to play with.

As far as the AMD campus itself, it’s nothing short of gorgeous. Built to be extremely green-friendly, the buildings bring in a lot of natural light and overlooks a particularly nice stretch of land out in the Silicon Hills.

A showroom for AMD partners like HP and Lenovo features consumer products, workstations and even a play room for an Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, all attractively displayed and ready to try out.

In this tough economic time, it’s rare that I get to see a facility that’s fresh and new and feels so full of potential. It’s lucky for AMD that they got the campus finished before the economy might have made it much tougher to pull off such a nice location.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Computers, Videogames

January 28, 2009

Hardware drive needs your old computers

When last we spoke to Ken Starks of Austin’s HeliOS Project, there had been a dustup involving AISD and some national publicity regarding LINUX.

We won’t go into that whole story (you can read about it here and here, but one thing lost in that bit of news might have been the work that Starks does in Austin to bring computers to kids who might not otherwise be able to afford them.

The HeliOS Project takes donated computers and installs the free-to-use LINUX operating system on them, then gives those computers to community centers and to students. Open-source software (for, say, word processing and Internet browsing) is also installed.

I know these are tough times, but if you have a computer that’s sitting around collecting dust, it would be a huge help to this effort. Their 2009 Hardware Drive has just launched. You can learn more about HeliOS here. Do what you can to help.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can get rid of my wife’s ancient refurbished Dell desktop system; we weren’t using it anyway.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Gadgets

January 15, 2009

Goodbye, Ana Sisnett

Like an increasing amount of breaking news, I first heard about Ana Sisnett’s passing on Twitter from several Austin techies I follow.

It had been years, at least six or seven, since I’d last spoken to her, but I never forgot her. We wrote about her several times when I was a reporter, then editor, of our old personal tech section, Technopolis.

She was one of the people who best embodied what the section was about and why it was so unique to the culture of Austin: she was an artist, a techie with reservations about technology, a community activist and, above all, a genuine human being. Her name came up often when we discussed ideas for stories about people who were making a difference in the Austin tech community. Browsing through the archive, I see stories from ex-Statesman reporters like Cara Anna, Robert W. Gee and (current business reporter) Lori Hawkins about Sisnett.

As executive director of Austin Free-Net she helped bridge the digital divide. In a 1998 American-Statesman business story, she told Lori Hawkins:

“We’ve been very successful at getting people to understand the need to provide technology, and we have the equipment set up, and that’s wonderful. But just having a room full of computers is not enough. We need volunteers who can help people get started. Volunteers who can answer questions like, ‘How do I turn on the computer? How do I open a program? How do I do research?’ What we’re hoping to do now is improve our training. When it comes down to it, people are our greatest resource. We want to demystify technology. What I’m finding is there are a lot of people who are embarrassed to say they don’t know this stuff. They are from different income levels and different communities and different professions. It seems like everybody is doing it and they’re not, and it’s mindboggling to them. So, they are afraid and they don’t know where to begin. The idea is for us to be the beginning for them. That’s where the training comes in. It goes far beyond surfing the Internet. We offer classes in Microsoft Word. People use our computers for job searching, resume writing and to learn computer skills to make themselves more employable.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

It is not enough to say the Austin tech community will Ana Sisnett. That much is obvious. What we must say is that we need more Ana Sisnetts who care enough to help bridge the gap between the tech haves and the tech have-nots. Ana may be gone, but that mission must continue.

Edited to add:

A reader informed me of these memorial times for Ana:

Altar-Building
La Peña
Thursday, Jan. 15
6 p.m.

Bring flowers, candles, Ana’s favorite things to place on an altar to celebrate her life.

Celebration Circle
La Peña
Friday, Jan. 16
7 p.m.
Bring items to place on Ana’s altar, a piece of Ana’s writing or writing in tribute to Ana to read.

Memorial Service
Trinity United Methodist Church
Saturday, Jan. 24
1 p.m.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet

January 14, 2009

Steve Jobs goes on medical leave until June

It’s spreading all over the news, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going on medical leave until June over health issues he says are more complex than he originally thought.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog posted a copy of the letter Jobs sent to employees. In it, he says his health issues have become a source of public speculation and distraction for the company.

Last week, he addressed the health issue question in an open letter on Apple’s Web site.

Sales of Apple stock have been halted. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, and of course, we’re all hoping for a speedy recovery for Jobs.

I can’t help think that all the people who speculated about Jobs’ health and how it might affect the company if he stepped down were unfairly admonished for their concerns. It is now an issue for the company and now all eyes are on Apple to see how they’ll handle the next few months without Jobs firmly at the helm.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Computers

January 9, 2009

Dell and AT&T introduce $99 laptop that costs $1,539

I was really hoping that the PC industry would never go back to those late-1990s deals where you bought a computer for less than you’d normally pay, but were saddled with multiple years of Internet service at a set price.

It was a trend that deservedly died out, but is now common in the cell phone industry. Get the phone relatively cheap, but get locked in to a two-year contract. As I’ve written before, the $199 iPhone is anything but cheaper than the $400 first-gen when you look at the bottom line.

Let me ask you this: do you know a single person who likes being locked into a cell phone contract?

Today, Dell and AT&T announced a new pricing option for the Inspiron Mini 9 notebook. The $449 laptop will sell for $99 (after a $350 mail-in rebate). The catch, if you want to call it that, is that you’ll be required to enter into a two-year Internet contract with AT&T for mobile broadband. The cost? $60 a month. (Plus, the press release says, “Additional fees.”

Not counting those fees and taxes, the total price of the laptop ends up $1,539 after two years.

If you already pay for broadband in your home (I pay about $46 a month), or are used to relying on Wi-Fi, you’ll have to consider if mobile broadband is the way to go. The advantage is that (as long as you’re within coverage areas), you won’t have to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot.

On the other hand: $1,539.

Where AT&T has the advantage is that there simply hasn’t been enough competition in broadband Internet service. We pay much more for broadband here than people in other countries do, and many of us are getting double- or triple-charged for having broadband in the home, broadband in our phones and broadband in wireless PC cards with not enough options to combine all that Internet service.

Maybe I’m not the audience for a product like this (I won’t even upgrade to an iPhone 3G because of the cost of 3G service), but it sure sounds like a raw deal to me.

Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers

January 6, 2009

iTunes news the only spark at snoozy Macworld keynote

It’s suddenly clear why Steve Jobs begged off on delivering Apple’s last keynote address at the Macworld Expo today: it was a bit of a snooze.

There was certainly no announcement on par with the introduction of the iPhone or even the more recent unveiling of aluminum-body Macbook computers. Except for an already-expected announcement that all 10 million songs on iTunes will be made available without copy production (or DRM-free, as it’s called), nothing really dazzled at the presentation.

The highlights, which I followed via the excellent Engadget play-by-play:

iTunes will offer all of its music library, about 10 million songs, DRM-free. Of course, Amazon MP3 has been doing this with its downloads for a while, but Apple has a larger library. The DRM-free revolution begins today with eight million songs available DRM-free. The other two million will be DRM-free by the end of the quarter, Apple says. Upgrading an existing library will be 30 cents per song.
Music publishers will have more freedom in setting pricing on music. Gone is the one-size-fits-all 99 cents-per-song pricing. Now some music will be made available at $1.29 or 69 cents.
A new 17-inch Macbook Pro features a longer battery life (eight hours!), but it comes at only one price: $2,799. Ouch. Too much of a good thing? The technical specs on the machine are certainly impressive, but are people really clamoring for a huge laptop that costs almost three thousand dollars? I’m not.
Apple is introducing iWork ‘09 and iLife ‘09. Most interesting is that Apple is introducing iwork.com, which will be an online space for collaborating on documents, much like Google Docs. Again, are people really desperate for this when a perfectly good free product already exists?
iLife ‘09 will feature big improvements in iMovie and iPhoto. iPhoto will have facial recognition, the ability to geotag photos on maps and the ability to upload directly to Flickr and Facebook. iMovie improves on the much-maligned iMovie ‘08 by reintroducing features and adding slick video editing features and effects.
The iPhone 3G will now be able to download iTunes music via the 3G network (previously only possible over Wi-Fi).
Tony Bennett came out and sang. Awesome, but… safe and predictable. Like the rest of the presentation.

Your thoughts?

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Gadgets, Movies & DVDs, Shopping

January 5, 2009

Best tech trends of '08 and a look at '09

In yesterday’s paper, we ran a story listing what were (in my view), the top five tech trends of 2008 and what five technologies to look for in 2009 might be.

Of course, a list like this covers an awful lot of ground and must overlook a lot of trends that were certainly important just to keep it to five.

With unlimited space, I might have talked about coworking, electronic voting, the ascension of Netflix to multiple streaming platforms and online shopping.

But I’m a lot more curious about what you readers have to say. What were your top five tech trends of 2008 and what are your predictions for ‘09?

If case you don’t have time to read the whole article, here’s a tiny version of mine:

Trends of 2008:

Cloud computing — your stuff, online.
App stores — cell phones grow up, get programs.
Social networks — Twitter and Facebook continued growing.
Hybrids — gas prices spiked and people got interested.
Screens — cheap displays meant more content on more screens.

And my picks for stuff to watch in 2009:

Netbooks
Off-site storage
Smarter TVs
New media gets more competitive
Air/gesture-based computing/gaming

What do you think? Get to prognosticating!

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December 11, 2008

AISD director of technology 'Embarrassed' about bad Linux publicity

Gray Salada, the executive director of technology for the Austin Independent School District, said he was “Kinda embarrassed, actually,” when he read Web posts about a local middle school teacher who was said to have confiscated Linux operated system discs from a student, then fired off a an angry e-mail to Austin HeliOS founder Ken Starks.

As of late Thursday afternoon, it was not clear who the middle school teacher was who created a chain events that has led to worldwide publicity about the exchange. Salada said he has spoken to Starks, but as of yet, AISD did not know the identity of the middle school teacher or, in fact, whether the incident occurred as described on Starks’ blog. Salada says he was only told that the teacher doesn’t teach technology.

“He doesn’t want any harm to come to the teacher and the district,” Salada said of Starks, “he won’t give me the name or the school.”

Salada said that AISD received several e-mails after the blog post was referenced on popular tech blogs like Boing Boing and Slashdot. He said some e-mails were merely letting the district know that the story was floating around online while others were less-than-supportive. “We got e-mail from people who were very indignant there was a teacher who could be totally clueless like this,” he said. Others were more constructive: “Some said that somebody needs to go talk to this teacher (about Linux). It’s tough to do because there’s no name.”

The AISD official chalks it up to an e-mail and blog exchange that got too emotional. If the incident did occur, he said, the teacher said things she had no business saying about a topic she clearly didn’t understand. “It’s just giving us a bad name and it’s sad,” Salada said, “it’s so the opposite of what we are and what we’re trying to be.”

Of the district’s 36,000 computers, two-thirds of them run Windows. However, these computers also run Open Office, Google Earth, Google Apps, Firefox and many other free software, much of it open-source. In addition, the district has 100 Linux servers and a lot of its infrastructure runs on that platform, Salada told the American-Statesman.

“We pretty much look at what the best product is to get the job done and we’re very price-sensitive as well,” Salada said.

Salada said that although AISD would love for the whole situation to blow over, they aren’t making a concerted effort to identify the teacher, identified only online as “Karen,” or to discipline her. In fact, Salada says he understands the teacher making sure inappropriate content wasn’t being brought into the classroom. “She was really doing her job,” he said, “I think where this thing melted down was in the interchange (online).”

So there you have it. AISD clueless about open-source? Not quite. At the very least, its technology director certainly understands how things spread online: “I guess it’s just the nature of what the Internet can do,” Salada said, “it happens fast.”

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Breaking: local Linux hero makes nice with flamed AISD teacher

It was the blog post heard ‘round the Linux world. According to a post on a local blog, Blog of helios, an AISD middle school teacher fired off an angry e-mail to HeliOS Project head Ken Starks. In the e-mail, the teacher, identified only as “Karen” in the blog post, says she came across a group of students huddled around a laptop with a student giving a demonstration of Linux.

Linux is a free, open-source operating system that is an alternative for many to Mac OS or Microsoft’s Windows. HeliOS is an Austin group that builds computers for kids who can’t afford them which run the Linux operating system.

The e-mail implied that what Starks is doing might be illegal and advised him to work with Microsoft instead. Starks’ fiery response to the e-mail, which he posted in the blog along with an excerpt from the e-mail, was picked up by such heavily trafficked sites as Slashdot and Boing Boing. On Slashdot alone, the item has generated more than 1,470 comments.

Now, Starks says he regrets the whole incident. “I don’t think I’ve ever committed one act that made me feel like such a schmuck,” he said in a phone interview with the American-Statesman today.

Starks says he has spoken with the teacher twice since his Monday post and that “Karen” was crying when they spoke. What she failed to mention in her initial e-mail, he says, is that she gave the Linux discs back to the student and was more concerned that there might be pornography or other suspect material on the discs than about a non-Windows operating system being introduced in the classroom.

“She was beside herself,” Starks said, “I excoriated an entire profession. If I can’t heal that what I want to do is make this lady understand that I’m really and sincerely sorry from the bottom of my heart that I caused her grief.”

Many blog commenters tried to suss out the teacher’s identity as well as her school by trying to decode x’s Starks used in his post to cover up the woman’s last name and her school. He assured me that he didn’t make his masking of the teacher’s identity that easy to decode. And searching the AISD database doesn’t narrow it down much: there are 66 AISD middle school employees named “Karen.”

Starks said a New Zealand newspaper offered to donate $1,000 to his project if he revealed the teacher’s last name and that a U.S. magazine offered $10,000 for the information. He does not plan to divulge Karen’s last name or school.

Starks sounded nervous when he answered his phone today. He said “We’re being litigated,” and added, “my lawyer has stuck a size-12 boot in my mouth.”

Nevertheless, he revealed that after his two conversations with the teacher, “She’s working to stop (the legal action).” He implied that colleagues of the teacher had encouraged her to take to the courts but that they had made progress in their two phone conversations, which the teacher initiated by text messaging Starks.

The brouhaha, Starks figures, has at least put a spotlight on Linux, which he says is his mission in life. Starks says he spoke to an official at AISD who assured him that not only does the district support Linux, but uses it widely. A phone call and e-mail to AISD have not yet elicited an informed response about the matter, but we’ll continue to update this story as more details or comment from the district is received.

Starks says he regrets the pain he says the harsh comments on the tech blogs have caused the teacher. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this bad about something I’ve done in my life,” he said.

Starks plans to follow-up his now-infamous blog post with another one tonight (around 10 p.m., he said) which will update the situation and take a much nicer tone, we can assume.

Nevertheless, there’s a bit of a silver lining in the story of how an angry e-mail could rile the entire Linux world: on Saturday, Starks says, he has been invited to install the Linux operating system on Karen’s home computer.

(Photo provided by Ken Starks.)

Update: AISD’s director of technology has commented on the story and given his take on the situation.

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December 8, 2008

From the DVR to the computer: TV bliss

A few weeks ago, I installed a very early version of DirectTV’s new DirectTV2PC software, which allows you to access whatever’s on your home DVRs from a Windows PC on the same network.

Sure, the name could use a little work, but the program itself worked great once I got it installed. (I had a major all-day headache trying to get the program activated, but once I found this information on a forum it worked for me.)

Once it was installed, though, the application did what it was supposed to: it accessed both of our home DVRs (we have the HR20 HD DVRs) and allowed me to watch programs from either box, even HD programs.

What are the limitations? HD video is very stuttery if your box or computer is hooked up via a Wi-Fi network. My living room box is connected via a wireless bridge and while SD video worked fine, anything HD was very tough to watch.

On the other hand, the DVR we have in the bedroom streamed HD video fine using a Powerline Ethernet connection, which is faster than the Wi-Fi. So if you plan to do something like this, make sure your DVR and your computer are hooked up on a good wired network or that your Wi-Fi network has enough bandwidth to handle the streaming.

You also can’t use DirecTV2PC while multiple monitors are running. This is awful because I’d love to be able to have a DVR show running on a second monitor while Web browsing or doing other stuff on my primary monitor. But for now, the program will tell you that you can only have one monitor running in order to watch shows. There’s also no way to delete shows on your DVR from the computer (maybe that’s a good thing; it would be easy to do it accidentally) or to set recordings from within the program.

I know this is nothing new for people who have TiVo boxes. TiVo has offered this capability for years and it’s a shame that satellite and cable providers are just getting around to implementing these features. For that matter, I’d really love to be able to access the contents of one DVR from the other DVR so we don’t have to guess which programs have been recorded in which room and adjust our viewing accordingly. AT&T already offers this with their U-verse service, but that’s because all the boxes in the house are sharing the same hard drive.

Competition has not let up in the war to earn your TV viewing dollar, so you can expect more innovations like this on every new DVR being offered out there. In fact, maybe we should come up with a set of requirements that every DVR should have: I’d start with the ability to set recordings remotely, place-shift recordings to your computer of mobile device and the ability to be able to offload programs onto an online service when your DVR gets too full in lieu of having to delete things you still want to watch.

It’s a start, at least. What new features would you like to see on your DVR?

Edited to add: Here’s where to find the DirecTV2PC application. It’s a beta program and you’ll have to provide a valid e-mail to receive a download code.

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December 4, 2008

The Linkdown for Thursday, Dec. 4

The holidays are almost upon us. Peep these links before things get too crazy and you don’t have time:

See the Dell Design Studio in action, on video.
PBS KIDS Island has been awarded an Editor’s Choice Award by the Children’s Technology Review. Congrats to the Island.
First Lego League is holding qualifying tournaments this weekend. GO LEGO CHAMPS!
A computer keyboard that you can wash? That’s just CRAZY!
Texas has the 19th-fastest Internet service in the nation, according to PC Magazine.
Explore Local Austin helps you figure out which local merchants you should patronize this holiday season.
Got heart-related questions? Why not ask a heart doctor?
Are your eyes tired? Gunnar Optiks has pricey glasses that will make you look like one of those cool Eastern European super spies, circa 1986. They look Wonderbar and are said to help if you sit in front of a screen all day.
One of our previous Masters of their Domains subjects, Andrew Butler of Hill Country Rambling, reports that his site is receiving about 2.5 million hits a month and has expanded to coverage of San Antonio and more of Austin. He’s also covering sporting athletic events now.
It’s not quite as impressive as OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself, but digital picture frame company Ceiva offers a chance to have your picture and name appear, as if by magic, in a video at sitonstantaslap.com — you can embed a picture of yourself and your name in the video on this site. I had the video of me posted below, but it was set to automatically play every time this blog page loaded and got really annoying, so I removed it. Dear Ceiva: please don’t make your dumb video do autoplay in the embed code. kthxbai!

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November 24, 2008

Live blog: holiday tech gifts

This live blog will start at 2 p.m. CST. Thanks for participating!

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October 14, 2008

Apple refreshes its notebook line

Steve Jobs donned the Black Long-Sleeved Shirt of Innovation to introduce new versions of Apple Inc.’s popular Macbook and Macbook Pro computers today.

Changes for the Macbook Pro and new aluminum versions of the Macbook laptop build on the manufacturing process that ushered in the ultra-light Macbook Air. Both are getting graphics processing updates from graphics company Nvidia and a new glass trackpad. No buttons below the trackpad: the entire piece of glass operates as your mouse, mouse buttons and multi-touch controls. The trackpad is also 39 percent larger, Jobs said. Macbook Pro prices will start at $1,999 and $2,499.

The white Macbook won’t disappear: instead it’ll be priced at $999, making it least expensive laptop in Apple history.

The new Macbooks start at $1,299 (or $1,599 for more hard drive space, a faster CPU and a backlit keyboard like the new Pros) and feature the aluminum enclosure, faster graphics and the glass trackpad.

Apple also made some tweaks to its Macbook Air, keeping its graphics capabilities in line with the other new laptops.

Apple also introduced a new 24-inch Cinema Display monitor for $899.

The Apple Store has just been updated with the new models and prices and you can see the specs on the Macbook and Macbook Pro pages.

A co-worker called the Apple Store and was told they don’t have the new notebooks out yet, but the online store has them available for sale. I imagine it won’t be long before they show up at the retail locations.

Lots more details in this blow-by-blow of the presentation from Engadget.com.

I’m not personally in the market for a new laptop (even though my one-year-old white Macbook looks permanently stained and is falling apart on one of its edges), but if I was, I’d probably hit that $1,299 aluminum Macbook. I’m not sure a backlit keyboard, slightly faster CPU and extra hard drive space is worth an extra $300 to step up to the $1,599 model.

The new Macbook:

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October 9, 2008

Apple expected to unveil new notebooks Tuesday

The rumor mill forever churns when it comes to Apple, but it looks like some recent ones about a new line (or a revamped line) of notebook computers may be grounded in some reality.

According to Wired and other sources, Apple will be making an announcement around noon on Tuesday about notebook computers.

The front-runner rumors are that Apple’s popular Macbook line will switch to an aluminum exterior, keeping it in line with other product lines (like the iMac). There’s been speculation that Apple has created a new manufacturing process (do a search for “Macbook” and “Brick” and you’ll see what they’re talking about), and that Apple will introduce a sub-$1,000 model. In fact, some are saying a bare-bones Macbook could run as low as $800, very cheap by Apple notebook standards.

I would also expect refinements, if not price cuts, for Macbook Pros and Macbook Air. I’m not feeling the speculation that the Macbook Pros and Macbook lines could merge into one product group; Apple likes having a “Pro” line and differentiating it from its consumer notebooks. I don’t see that changing.

The Macbooks in particular are due for a design change. We’ll see on Tuesday what Apple rolls out for those who’ve been waiting to buy (including a desk-neighbor at my office).

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September 4, 2008

Oh, those titans of tech

What are the big boys of technology doing this month?

We already know that Google is putting its claws into another portion of the Internet with its new Chrome browser. (Further impression: I managed to get a tab to crash last night, by watching a YouTube video of all things.)

Dell today revealed a very low-cost mini laptop, the Inspiron Mini 9. It’s great news for consumers in general, but how will they make money off this thing? I guess by selling a ton of them. It reminds me of the underpants gnomes from “South Park.” Dell mini notebook ==> ??? ==>> PROFIT!

Microsoft and Apple both have big unveilings planned for September 9th. Everyone expects Apple will release new versions of its iPod Touch and possibly a new version, 8.0, of iTunes. What other surprises does Steve Jobs have up his black sleeve? Interestingly, Microsoft has also chosen that day to unveil what some expect will be a new kind of mouse technology using a blue laser (but not a Blu-ray), some Web cams and maybe some new Zunes. Why would Microsoft unveil electronics on the same day as Apple? Hey, they’re Microsoft. It’s not like they make huge marketing blunders. We’ll have to just trust them on this one.

Gaming giant Electronics Arts is releasing Will Wright’s long-awaited “Spore” on Sunday in North America. Behind-the-scenes reporting story: I received the game yesterday and stayed up late last night playing it. We were asked not to post any reviews of the game until 9 a.m. Friday, but several gaming sites posted their reviews this morning. When I asked EA what was up with that, they told me that since the game is being released early in other countries, they were letting the whole embargo thing go. But then they asked me to hold my review until tomorrow. Huh? I’ve been hearing surprisingly little buzz about “Spore” given how much attention it’s been given over the years and as I began playing the game last night, I began to see see why.

The game, at least on first glance, feels much slighter than expectations have suggested. Yes, it’s about the creation of an entire species, but the game plays as episodes that, at least in what I played, don’t feel as deep as what I was expecting. In fact the entire first section of the game feels like an extrapolated, very pretty version of the cheap downloadable game “Fl0w.”

I’ll have more to say on the game tomorrow after another night of play, but so far I have very mixed feelings about “Spore.” It’s technically wonderful, runs without a hitch, feels very polished — but so far, it feels a lot lighter than the game I felt we were promised. If you can’t wait until tomorrow, plenty of other people have already posted reviews of the game.

And lastly, on the subject of TiVo and DirecTV, I agree with this guy on a new TiVo HD recorder that’s been announced for DirecTV. In fact, I’m furious about it, but I’ll have to tell you why later.

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September 2, 2008

Browser wars anew; holiday tech news

It was a very long Labor Day weekend; at least it feels that way when you have a 1-year-old who likes to listen to the same CD over and over. Thank goodness she hasn’t figured out how the DVD player works yet.

But, enough about me. How are you? Did you see all this tech news that happened over the break? If not, let me fill you in:

The big talk this morning has been about Google’s sudden unveiling of a brand new Web browser called “Chrome.” As the company explains in a nicely done (but very long) comic by “Understanding Comics” author Scott McCloud, Chrome has been built from the ground up and is an open-source project. How will it do against Microsoft’s forthcoming final version of Internet Explorer 8, Safari, Opera and Firefox browsers? Early word is that Chrome is very, very fast. But will it have the plug-in community support of Firefox and build an audience as large as Internet Explorer? You can download the beta program for Windows yourself and see what you think.
Is Dell launching an ultraportable computer on Thursday? The rumors seem to suggest they will.
Local publisher Gamecock Media releases its long-anticipated game “Pirates VS. Ninjas Dodgeball” for Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow.
The man of a million voiceovers has died.
AT&T Wireless customers can automatically donate $5 to the Red Cross to help evacuees fleeing Hurricane Gustav by texting the word GIVE to 2HELP.
Are new iPods coming? Everyone expects they’ll be announced next Tuesday.
Nikon’s new D90 camera sounds HOT. HD video recording on top of a top-of-the-line consumer DSLR camera? Too bad I already own a D50 and just bought an HD camcorder earlier this year. David Pogue has already reviewed it and says it’s a fantastic camera, but a bit limited as a camcorder. Also love the idea of that geotagging GP-1 add-on device.
What I’m playing: “Soul Calibur IV” for the Xbox 360, “No More Heroes” for the Wii and possibly “Spore” for the PC if it arrives in the next day or two for early review.

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August 6, 2008

Supplemental: Thoof shuts down, Dell ad agency hides Apple goods?

Two more items to share with you today, both lobbed our way by Austin blogger Jeff Beckham.

First off, this item is too delicious not to share: according to Mediabistro.com’s AgencySpy blog, employees at the Austin offices of Dell Inc.’s ad agency Enfatico (Gesundheit!) swapped all of their Apple equipment for PCs in anticipation of a visit from Michael Dell.

According to the item, which was said to be confirmed by inside sources, the switcheroo was quite expensive and was just one problem at the fledgling agency. If it’s true, you must admit it’s just a tiny bit hilarious.

It reminds me of when people dress up in ties and dress clothes when the CEO is visiting. Except this was thousands of dollars worth of hardware.

Come on, Michael Dell. Did you really think there’s a high-end ad agency that exclusively uses PCs? Really?

In more somber news, Austin startup Thoof.com, which was trying to combine community content like Digg.com with an artificial intelligence backbone that could be applied to other kinds of sites, has shut its doors. We wrote about them last year and I found their leader, Ian Clarke, to be kind of brilliant. We wish them the best in their new endeavors.

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July 29, 2008

Dell Studio Hybrid is for real; Scrabulous no more

The Dell Studio Hybrid computer that I mentioned yesterday is now a three-dimensional reality:

Dell has not always been known for its fashion-forward PCs, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. The diminutive setup includes a wireless keyboard and mouse, a PC base that looks more like an external hard drive and a flat-screen monitor.

It also comes in multiple colors and one possibly ill-advised Bamboo model:

The energy-efficient Hybrid starts at $499 and be equipped with a Blu-ray drive as an optional feature.

Oh, Scrabulous.

The popular Scrabble-like Facebook application is no more. Hasbro has added its own version of Scrabble to the social networking site and has taken legal action against the popular knockoff.

It didn’t take long for a Scrabble protest group to show up on Facebook.

The New York Times Bits blog has more updates — apparently the Scrabulous developers took the game offline themselves in North America, not Facebook.

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July 28, 2008

Is this Dell's new Studio Hybrid Mini PC?

Apple isn’t the only company that has to content with rumors and speculation about its product line ruining potentially huge announcements.

Dell Inc. may have had a new product exposed on the Engadget blog. The so-called Dell Studio Hybrid Mini PC has been pictured (at least in drawing form) on the site and supposedly sports a wireless mouse and keyboard, a diminutive, rounded based unit and, of course, an obligatory flat-screen monitor.

It looks very nice — we can’t wait to see actual photos if this is indeed a new Dell product that’ll be rolled out online soon.

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July 7, 2008

Join the Austin-based cancer computing grid

You want to help cure cancer, don’t you? What else are you doing that’s more important than that today?

A project at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Biomedical Engineering has introduced a grid computing project to study cell adhesion. This is not, as I had thought at first, when it’s really hot outside and your cell phone sticks to the side of your face.

Instead, it’s an area of research into why certain cells stick and others break free, such as the moment when cancer cells break free and spread throughout the body.

The research project is headed up by assistant professor Muhammad Zaman (pictured on the right).

Here’s where you come in: the research involves harnessing the power of multiple computers online and having them share their processing power in a passive way. You can download the BOINC program to contribute your computer’s idle processing power to the Cellular Environment in Living Systems @Home project. The program runs in the background like a screensaver and won’t get in the way of any naughty Web browsing or exciting instant messaging you may have planned.

Find out more about Cels@home here and read up on downloading instructions.

I’ve played around with similar projects like the Stanford-based Folding@Home project with the PlayStation 3 and it’s pretty amazing to watch scientific work being done inside your home. Check it out.

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June 6, 2008

72 hours until iPhone 2.0?

It’s gone from rumors to a foregone conclusion that on noon Monday, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2008 in San Francisco, Apple Inc. chief Steve Jobs will unveil the next iteration of the iPhone.

Nearly a year after it hit U.S. Apple and AT&T stores, the iPhone has been improved with several significant software upgrades, but the rumor mill believes that some hardware improvements will make the handset even better. Among the anticipated improvements: built-in GPS (as opposed to the faux-GPS that current iPhones employ using triangulation); 3G wireless speeds that would allow the iPhone to surf more quickly even out of Wi-Fi zones; size changes (either thicker, thinner or in two screen sizes, depending on what rumor you believe) and more memory.

No one expects a total redesign of the phone. Reviews over the past year have largely been positive for what was at one time referred to as the “Jesus Phone.” The hardware is nicely designed and the software remains elegant. Issues that were brought up early on — the difficulty of use of the screen keyboard, limitations in text messaging and worries about the limited memory have largely been addressed. (Well, not the keyboard; some people still don’t like it. I’ve come to really like it, myself.)

Apart from changes to the iPhone itself, Jobs is expected to open the floodgates to third-party applications for the phone, which would be distributed and sold through the iTunes store. Expect to see a flood of handy apps and tools announced Monday.

What nobody seems to agree upon is pricing, which (for me, at least) was a huge issue when the iPhone was introduced. Will there be a plan to subsidize current iPhone users so they can upgrade to a 3G version painlessly and with little cost? Will Apple cut the price of the iPhone to boost sales, which have begun to show signs of weakening?

While at one time, I believed Apple would allow the new version of the iPhone to co-exist with the old one, I now think they’ll do whatever they can to move people over to the new iPhone, even if that means giving current users a huge discount.

I also think AT&T will charge more for access to the 3G network, but it won’t be a huge increase: maybe $10 more a month for unlimited 3G access. That would make the iPhone’s data plan about $30, putting it within range of what people pay for BlackBerry data plans.

What do you think Monday will bring? Post your speculation and hopes in the comments.

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June 3, 2008

Macbook Pro users reporting wireless issues

A blog reader and Apple Macbook Pro user shot me a message pointing me to this discussion forum where MBP users are complaining that they’re suffering from wireless woes.

The problem, according to posters, is that on some Wi-Fi networks, the laptops are either dropping their Internet connection or throttling transfers to dial-up speeds.

Given that the MBP is Apple’s flagship notebook (it’s pricier than the Macbook Air), owners expected that Apple would fix the problem with its most recent massive software update. Apparently, that didn’t do the trick.

Apple was said to have apologized last month to faculty from the New York City Department of Education after the issue led the department to cancel a large Macbook Pro order because of the issue.

Apple should have some major announcements on Monday and the last thing they need is this kind of publicity. Let’s hope a software patch is forthcoming and that it fixes up the problem for angry owners.

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May 22, 2008

Dell, Pixel Mine get in the game

Two local tech companies are kicking off the summer by trying some unconventional ways to get video games into gamers’ hands.

Pixel Mine, Inc., which we’ve written about here before, recently launched Pixel Mine Portal, where PC gamers can download a launcher to play games from the company. Launch games include “Ashen Empires” and “Dransik,” both massively multiplayer online games, as well as beta versions of “Fireteam Reloaded” and “Secondhand Lands.”

Some games on the site are free, but others will rely on “micropayments.” Players purchase tokens that can be used for any games on the site. In the future, players will be able to earn game points and use them for prizes and store items.

Competition for gamers’ eyeballs is at an all-time high, so here’s hoping Pixel Mine can carve its own little niche out there.

Dell Inc. is also trying to get gamers excited. The company’s College Gaming League is partnering with the Championship Gaming Series for an amateur league.

Geared toward PC and Xbox 360 players, the College Gaming League offers educational discounts to all college students on PC bundles as well as access to tournaments for university teams.

Expect to see this partnership play out on campuses with competitions leading to national video game tourneys, which are expected to be televised.

Professional video-game leagues haven’t really taken off in the U.S. the way they have in South Korea and other countries, but if anyone’s in a position to put some hardware muscle behind the movement, it’s Dell.

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May 19, 2008

AMD tries to raise gamer awareness with AMD Game

AMD is trying to woo PC gamers again with a branding campaign it hopes will demystify the process of buying a computer for gaming.

“AMD GAME!” is a branding initiative launched today, not unlike the old chestnut “Intel Inside.” PCs that have been vetted for hardware compatibility will earn an “AMD GAME!” or “AMD GAME! Ultra” sticker. The goal, the company said in an interview Friday, is to give shoppers a clear indication of whether a PC will play their favorite games without having to pore over an alphabet soup of processor and graphic card specs.

Partners in the initiative include Microsoft, Austin’s game developer NCsoft and Dell’s Alienware game hardware division.

What will a PC with “AMD GAME!” get you? For an AMD-based system, here are the minimum specs:

For “AMD GAME!”: A minimum of an AMD Athlon X2 5600+ processor, an ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card and 2 gigabytes of DDR2 memory. They’ll typically be priced about $699-$999, says AMD.
For “AMD GAME! Ultra”: A minimum of an AMD Phenom X4 9650 processor, an ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics card and 2 gigabytes of DDR2 memory. Typical PC prices for a system like this will be about $999-$1,299, the company said.

For specs below that, PCs would be considered by AMD to cater more to casual users while machines amped up far beyond “Ultra” would be using what the company calls “CrossfireX,” a configuration of multiple graphics card that only hardcore gamers tend to want to deal with.

What will “AMD GAME!” do for gaming? In my experience, games couldn’t care less about the stickers and branding that accompany a new PC. But they will pore over the specs of a system to make sure the graphics card and processor is to their liking, so a little shorthand to avoid the alphabet soup of processors and graphics products might be a good thing.

On the other hand, we’ve all seen what happens when a large-scale branding campaign like Intel’s Viiv is met with the shrugging of shoulders. Does it mean much in the big scheme of the PC market?

AMD is hoping that the world’s 263 million PC gamers worldwide will at least make “AMD GAME!” a factor in future purchases.

One disturbing note, though: In a presentation on which games were solid performers on “AMD GAME!” and “AMD GAME! Ultra” systems, AMD neglected to include the game that most gamers consider the true test of a system’s hardware: “Crysis.” Sure, lots of people play “World of Warcraft” and “Lineage 2,” but “Crysis” is the real torture test and benchmark these days for gaming performance. Its absence in AMD’s pretty frame-rate measurement chart is disturbing, to say the least.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping, Videogames

May 14, 2008

Dell would do well to dump XPS (Updated)

Dell Inc. is getting rid of its XPS line of gaming enthusiast computers in favor of supplying gaming PCs and laptops by Alienware, the company it acquired two years ago.

You might be tempted to ask, “What took them so long?” In the two years since the acquisition, Alienware has continued to innovate on the high end of the gaming market, pushing the boundaries of PC graphics, cooling and performance, three areas important to gamers who want to pull every last bit of frame-rate from their games.

Dell’s XPS line has… well, they’ve put out some models in very interesting colors. It’s not that XPS machines were bad. It just never made sense to gamers that Dell would have two completely different lines of computers aimed at gamers.

We come to praise Dell in this space, though: This is a good decision, one that sends a clear vote of confidence about Alienware as the PC gaming industry goes through a tough time. There are some who say PC gaming is dying, or at the very least is becoming an increasingly niche market. EA Sports recently canceled a PC version of its flagship “Madden NFL” game and with all the recent hype about “Grand Theft Auto IV,” PC gamers were left to wonder if they’d ever get to visit the dangerous streets of Liberty City on their computers.

PC games are in a transitional period: for every giant success like “World of Warcraft,” there are dozens of misfires — games that just aren’t selling well on the PC or are selling better on the console side. (One exception: “The Orange Box,” which just flat out plays better on PC.)

There were fears that Alienware might be absorbed into the Dellganism and might become part of the XPS brand. The trouble with that would have been that XPS never cultivated the kind of stellar reputation among gamers that Alienware has maintained for so many years. Sure, some people consider Alienware PCs and laptops to be overpriced, but they are also among the most recognizable PCs in the world, and the brand itself carries a lot of weight in PC circles. If you have an Alienware computer, it says you’re serious about PC gaming.

And this announcement means Dell is serious about it, too.

Update: Dell Inc. posted a message last night saying that the Wall Street Journal story is wrong and that it has no plans to phase out the XPS brand. According to the post, featured on one of Dell’s customers blogs, XPS will continue to exist and will push beyond gaming while the company plans to “invest like crazy in product development, design and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future.”

Uh huh. So I guess my praise was given too soon. Dell will continue to push XPS as a premium brand, somewhere between its business/home lines and its Alienware gaming brand? Does it sound to anybody else like this may be one line of computers too many?

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April 17, 2008

Windows Vista video: not Bruce. More like BOOOS!

I am paid to write words, but even I do not have the vocabulary to describe the following Microsoft video, which is causing more than a few giggles on the Internet since it was posted last week.

Even if it was totally intended as a joke, it’s still horrifying.

Please do not hate me for sharing it with you. Instead, shed a tear for the musicians who sacrificed their very souls to put these ideas to “Music”:

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February 29, 2008

Windows Vista price cut: It's not looking good

Microsoft is cutting the price of boxed copies of its Windows Vista operating system, which is lending fuel to the pundit fire, the many bloggers and techies who say Windows got a big, bloated turkey on their hands.

They are partly right. Although many new PCs are shipping with Windows Vista, it has not been the runaway success that Microsoft was hoping for. Since launching more than a year ago, Vista has been beset by performance and compatibility issues, a revolt from PC buyers who demanded the older Windows XP be installed instead of Vista on their new machines and a scandal involving what machines were labeled “Windows Vista Capable.”

A forthcoming massive overhaul for Vista, Service Pack 1, has so far not raised hopes that Vista will be improved much, at least in terms of speed.

Even putting all that aside, Microsoft has been on the losing end of a PR battle, not only with its chief operating system competitor Apple (which has bashed Vista in TV ads and everywhere else), but also among PC gamers, IT managers who have kept their companies from making the move to Vista and anyone who is perfectly content with the way their current PC is running Windows XP.

What to do, what to do? Vista has become synonymous, especially to those who aren’t running it, with “Bloatware” and “unnecessary upgrade.”

It might be time for Microsoft to begin distancing itself from Vista entirely. It should admit publicly that Vista has been problematic and that it’s not indicative of the company’s future. Whatever its timeline is for the next major operating system, Microsoft should move its target to a year from now and slash and burn everything about Vista that doesn’t work, including the name.

Something is very wrong here, and maybe it’s only as deep as a perception of massive failure. But Vista is the company’s flagship product (arguably in tandem with Microsoft Office). A broken, buggy, unpopular Windows Vista is bad news for the company as a whole and the longer this loser sits in the marketplace, the further it’ll taint the software giant’s reputation.

Vista took years and years to develop. Whatever comes next won’t have that luxury. The successor to Vista needs to come sooner rather than later, be offered at a heavy discount to those who’ve already purchased Vista and be issued with an expertly crafted mea culpa from the company.

Maybe Vista’s not so bad. But millions who aren’t upgrading or are moving to Macs believe Vista is problematic. And for Microsoft in the long run, that’s going to be prove to be just as big a problem.

Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Applications, Computers, Shopping

February 5, 2008

Dell goes after 'typosquatters,' 'domain tasters'

A story from IDG News Service says that Dell Inc. is suing a group of seemingly shady offshore companies who, according to the suit, make it a practice to register domain names based on misspellings to generate ad dollars under false pretenses.

The suit also describes the practice of “Domain tasting” and “kiting,” in which companies use a grace period for registered domains to acquire a large number of domain names, then dump the ones that aren’t generating enough money. In such cases, some companies exploit a five-day grace period to avoid paying for domain names that aren’t producing money.

It’s fascinating reading about a practice that also incorporates another big tech name: Google. Google’s AdSense program is a big money generator for many of these shell sites.

(Link via Slashdot.)

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January 30, 2008

Accenture demos giant touch screen

Austin’s Accenture showed off a giant-screen application it’s hoping to sell to government agencies.

The demo was at the Government Technology 2008 conference over at the Convention Center. It’ll be on display until 4 p.m. tomorrow.

The screen, made of several panels, isn’t a true touch-screen. Instead, the unit works by recognizing interruptions in light about an inch in front of the video panels. The advantage to that is that the size of the screen can be much larger. The downside is that the screen seems sensitive to lighting conditions and isn’t always 100 percent responsive to touch. The employees showing the demo sometimes had difficulty moving objects on the screen around.

Nevertheless, the demo was impressive: movable menus on screen (see the video) can be used to update data on the fly, using databases to simulate scenarios. A government agency might use something like this in an emergency, say a hurricane, to decide how to route traffic and resources across the state.

A second demo showed a military application (not shown in the video, unfortunately) that included interactive mapping, video from military units and drones and lots of intel.

You can only imagine what could be done with something like this in video games or interactive store demos. It’s a bit “Minority Report,” eh?

Here’s the video:

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Dell saying goodbye to mall kiosks

Dell Inc. is eliminating its mall kiosks, taking it out of the bustling retail area that includes those funky plastic birds that fly around in a circle and cheap gold jewelry stands where you buy gifts for your girlfriend when you’re 15 years old.

The Dell kiosk at Barton Springs Square mall was always a welcome sight for me: I enjoyed checking out the large flat-panel monitor and the multiple printers. But I never actually saw anyone buy an item at one of these kiosks, which may be part of the problem.

If this ends up being a good business decision for Dell, I’m all for shutting these things down, especially if it makes more room for scrumptious cheeses and sausages from our friends at Hickory Farms.

Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Austin, Computers, Food, Shopping

January 28, 2008

Multiple computers + one iPhone and using Tracks To-Do list

I wrote last week about getting an iPhone, and one of the things I hadn’t figured out yet was how to synchronize multiple computers to an iPhone and how to share contacts/datebook information across multiple computers.

Readers to the rescue! David Wyatt sent me two links that got me up and running on the multiple computer front.

Macworld explains how to do it and even posted a helpful video showing the process. The video is viewable directly on the iPhone, which is, well, it’s delicious, frankly.

Using the tips in the video I was able to sync up selected songs and videos from my Windows XP desktop computer (which is what I use to sync my iPod video), but to keep my contacts, iCal information and photos from my Macbook. The one tricky thing is that podcasts are separate from music and videos. I’m grabbing music and videos from the desktop, but loading podcasts into the iPhone from the Macbook.

You’ve got to be careful in checking/unchecking those boxes to make sure you’re not wiping out something. iTunes only wipes out information that’s being synchronized specifically and doesn’t erase everything, even if the warning menus might lead you to believe that.

Thanks, David! I still haven’t tackled synchronizing Google Calendar to iCal, but that’s my next project.

A few people asked me to give them a link to “Tracks,” an online piece of Ruby on Rails software I mentioned in Sarah Lindner’s Getting Things Done column.

Information about Tracks, an online to-do/task manager, is available here.

You can install it on your own server, which is way too complicated for me, so I’m using a public server at this address. Tracks.tra.in offers free accounts. I went ahead and sent the server’s owner a Paypal donation last year after using it for a while to help offset his costs.

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January 15, 2008

Breaking down Macworld: a letdown after '07 edition?

Maybe it was a coincidence, but it felt like the whole Internet was slowing down and crashing as Steve Jobs was telling the world what Apple had up its sleeve in this morning’s Macworld keynote address. Gadget blogs covering the event slowed to a crawl. Twitter.com went down. After last year’s monumental iPhone announcement, it’s clear: When Steve Jobs asks for 90 minutes of our time, the Internet sits and listens.

This year, though, I find myself underwhelmed on the whole. The Jobs Reality Distortion Field has worn off more quickly than usual and a few items presented seem flat-out ridiculous to me. Jobs and Apple aren’t perfect, and in this presentation, at least, some flaws showed.

Let’s go point by point:

The Macbook Air: Certainly design-wise, this new ultra-thin laptop is revolutionary. But I think it’s going to be one of Apple’s most divisive products, not a home-run like the iPhone. In his keynote, Jobs said the goal was to create a thin, light laptop without the compromises that have plagued past devices from competitors. Well, I think the Macbook Air makes too many compromises for its $1,799 price. It’s got a less powerful processor than the lowest-end Macbook. It had two gigabytes of memory standard (that’s good!) but only a measly 80 GB hard drive (that’s bad!). If you want to side-grade to a 64 GB flash drive, which would theoretically be faster and use less power, you’re talking about a $1,000 upgrade cost. You read that right. The next step up from the $1,799 basic version of the Macbook Air is $3,098! What does that extra money buy you? Just the flash drive and a slightly faster Intel processor (1.8 GHz instead of 1.6). What else is missing? You’ll get only one USB port, no Ethernet port at all (you’ll be forced to go completely wireless-Internet) and no optical drive. You won’t be able to read or burn CDs or DVDs without an external $99 add-on drive. You’ll only be able to install disc-based software using a program called Remote Disc, which involves borrowing the optical drive from another computer. And the battery on it can’t be easily replaced. Anyone who’s owned a laptop for a few years knows the battery eventually wears down and needs replacing. Much like the iPhone and iPod, you’ll have to take it in and have someone swap the battery for you. The price? $129. Someone will buy this computer: It’s too slim and pretty for people to ignore. But the performance and features that have been stripped out just sound like a lot of inconveniences in the making. For people who only use their laptop for e-mail and a little Web browsing on the go, this sounds like an expensive, but fashionable choice. The backlit keyboard sounds great, as does the larger multi-touch trackpad. But these features don’t make up for what’s missing. I sense that this one could be a bust.

Time Capsule: Great idea, great price, great timing. I believe this year will be a watershed one for data storage. We have so much data accumulating — photos, videos, e-mail and music — that we need a secure, easy-to-access place to store it all. The combination Apple Extreme Router and high-capacity hard drive, priced at $299 and $499 is an example of what Apple does best: sensing what customers need before they anticipate it themselves. Sure, there are plenty of external hard drives, but how many of them come with a speedy wireless-N router and the software to do backups over Windows and Mac PCs? Let’s just hope the software works as promised.

iPhone upgrades: I was surprised that no faster 3G iPhone was announced for 2008, or that at least a memory bump for the device (16 GB, please?) was unveiled. The upgrades to the operating system do make the $400 even more attractive than ever, and iPhone geeks will certainly appreciate the new mapping options. Still, this feels like a let-down after a full year since the original iPhone announcement.

iPod Touch upgrades: Mail, maps, stocks, notes and weather are nice, but making current owners shell out $20 for the upgrade is bush-league and not at all in line with the free software updates being offered for the iPhone and Apple TV. Why single out the iPod Touch for this pay-to-upgrade? I have a feeling most iPod Touch users will ignore the software upgrade and keep listening to their music without being interrupted by e-mails or weather information.

Movie rentals: Unless you’re an Apple die-hard who had an iPod Touch or Video, an iPhone and an Apple TV, I don’t know that this is something to get so excited about. It’s great news that Steve Jobs convinced all the major movie studios to play ball, but I don’t think Apple is doing anything here that makes digital movie rentals any more palatable than what Amazon is doing with Unbox or what Netflix is rolling out. It’s a good option for impulse rentals, but the so-called “HD” versions, priced more than the $2.99 and $3.99 movie rentals are on the low end of the HD resolution scale (1280 x 720) and can’t be watched on an iPod or iPhone if they’re rented or purchased on an Apple TV first. I just don’t think movie rentals are going to be a huge move for Apple with the 24-hour restriction and increasing rollout of video-on-demand services on cable and satellite. There’s also the matter of new releases being made available only a full month after a DVD release. I think most people will opt for DVD new releases instead.

Apple TV: Lowering the price to $229 ($329 for the larger hard drive version ) is a good move, tweaking the interface is always welcome and allowing one-button movie rentals and purchases is a step in the right direction. Being able to view photos from Flickr.com is a welcome addition. So why does this box still feel unfinished? This is a product that already feels like its run its course and without any hardware updates, I don’t think Apple is going to turn its fortunes around with a price drop and a few new features.

Predictions roundup:

I said there was a 77 percent chance Apple would introduce an ultra-portable Macbook. Right!

I said there was an 80 percent change that Apple would announce Wi-Max or 3G high-speed wireless Internet capabilities in all its future devices. Dead wrong. Oops.

I predicted a 20 percent chance Apple would introduce a new version of the iPhone. Mostly right on this. New software update, but no new iPhone.

I said there was a 30 percent chance Apple would introduce a new version of the Apple TV. There was no hardware upgrade, but Apple called its new software enhancements “Apple TV Take Two.” We’ll call this one a draw.

I predicted a 68 percent chance that Apple would announce the end of digital rights management (DRM) on iTunes. Dead wrong again. Too bad for Apple.

I predicted a 100 percent chance Apple would announce movie rentals for iTunes. Woo hoo!

I predicted a 5 percent chance Apple would announce a tablet Mac or touch-screen computer. No announcement made. Right on this one.

I was 70 percent sure Apple would announce the Beatles catalog being available on iTunes. I was so sure on this one! But wrong.

What do you think? Were you disappointed in the Macworld announcements and waiting for “One more thing” that would blow us all away? Post your comments down below.

Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Applications, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, Shopping

Steve Jobs' Macworld announcements: the quick and dirty

Here are the highlights from Macworld with info from the live-blogs at TechCrunch and Engadget. (I might use Gizmodo, but I worry that they’ll find a way to interrupt Steve Jobs’ presentation):

Time Capsule — A mash-up of Apple’s Airport Extreme router and a wireless hard drive in the shape of a Mac Mini called “Time Capsule.” It’ll be able to do wireless backups from any computer in the house. $299 for a 500 GB version and $499 for a 1-terabyte (about 1,000 GB) version.
New iPhone features — Location mapping using triangulation and wireless hotspot locations. The ability to send text messages to multiple recipients. The ability to move icons around on the home screen. Nothing surprising here.
New iPod Touch features — Mail, maps, stocks, notes, and weather as well as chapters for movies and lyrics for songs (these last two also apply to the iPhone). The catch: This will come installed in new iPod Touches, but will cost $20 to upgrade for existing iPod Touch owners. Ooh, burn!
Movie rentals via iTunes — Also not a surprise, but it sounds like all the major movie studios are on board. 24 hour movie rentals, $2.99 for older movies, $3.99 for new releases. A dollar more each for HD versions.
Interface tweaks to the Apple TV — A software/interface updates puts more emphasis on movies and YouTube. You can buy/rent movies directly through the Apple TV and view free HD podcasts. No computer necessary. Called “Apple TV Take 2.”
The biggie: The Macbook Air — Jobs calls it the “world’s thinnest notebook.” 13.4-inch display, thin enough to fit in a manila envelope. It comes with an 80 GB hard drive or an optional 64 GB solid-state drive. Tiny. Only powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel processor which sounds a little weak-sauce to me. No optical drive; it’s optional for $99. I love the design, but this sounds pretty underpowered compared to even the lowliest current Macbook. Price: $1,799. Ouch. Thin is expensive.

More analysis later. There’s not as much to digest here as we thought and much of this was already predicted.

Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones

January 14, 2008

Odds maker: What does Steve Jobs have in store for Macworld?

It’s been a year since Steve Jobs dropped some tight science on the world with the announcement of the iPhone. We all know what happened after that fateful January day. But now, everyone is expecting Apple’s head turtleneck to unveil something just as mindblowing when he takes the stage tomorrow at Macworld (around 11 a.m.).

There’ve been plenty of rumors about what will be presented. A few of those rumors have fallen by the wayside with recent product announcements. For instance, a hardware refresh to Apple’s hardcore Mac Pro desktop last week means it probably means there won’t be any Mac Pro hardware updates at the press event.

I’m borrowing a page from “Pardon the Interruption” and offering odds on what will be unveiled tomorrow. Keep in mind, I’m not truly psychic. My powers of perception are no more mystical than, say… Mystikal’s.

Chances Steve Jobs will…

…unveil an ultra-portable version of the Macbook: 77 percent. Rumors sprouting from supposed manufacturing leaks and patent applications seemed to point to a portable sub-notebook device with a 13-inch screen and Wi-Max Internet capabilities (more on that below). As with the leaked images of the most recent iPod Nano (the “Fatty”), these rumors have been too persistent to ignore. If Apple doesn’t debut some kind of mini-notebook, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. This laptop would, of course, be sleek and super-thin and would expand on Apple’s touch-pad capabilities with new goodies.

…announce Wi-Max or 3G high-speed wireless Internet capabilities in all its future devices: 80 percent. This one I’m most sure about given banners already seen at Macworld bearing the slogan, “There’s something in the air.” The service, in our wildest dreams, would be free, subsidized by hardware costs as it is with the high-speed wireless Internet used on Amazon’s Kindle reader. I would imagine this would also be a big selling point for the next iPhone.

…introduce a new version of the iPhone: 20 percent. This one’s unlikely. Remember the uproar that followed when Steve Jobs dropped the price of the iPhone by $200? Imagine the wrath of current iPhone owners if Apple introduced a whole new piece of iPhone hardware. Instead, expect to see free operating system enhancements to the current iPhone, including new iPhone software from Apple and outside developers like Google. I’d expect to hear an announcement of the long-awaited 3G- (or Wi-Max) capable iPhone for later this year.

…introduce a new version of the Apple TV: 30 percent. Again, I don’t think Apple is ready to redesign the hardware on this one even though some media streamers introduced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show trump the little silver box in capabilities and price. Instead, expect to see more software updates for the underperforming device, expanding its capabilities and adding movie rentals and other next-gen iTunes features.

…announce the end of digital rights management (DRM) on iTunes: 68 percent. Call me an optimist, but I think that with Sony BMG’s recent announcement that it’s dropping copy protection on digital music, the ball is in Apple’s court to do away with its own DRM. At the very least, Apple needs to do this to stay competitive with Amazon’s growing MP3 store.

…announce movie rentals for iTunes: 100 percent. This one’s a sure bet with Steve Jobs hustling to get more movie studios on board. I think the studios are a lot more willing to go with him on movie rentals than they are on movie purchases.

…announce his retirement from Apple: 0 percent. Are you kidding? Dude’s on a roll.

…announce a tablet Mac/touch-screen computer: 5 percent. Unlikely. Even the rumormongers don’t think this one’s ready for prime-time.

…announce that the Beatles library is available on iTunes: 70 percent. This rumor’s been around so long that people have almost forgotten about it. Led Zeppelin’s greatest hits CD is on iTunes as is the new Radiohead (older albums are expected to follow from EMI). The Beatles are the last great holdout and Paul McCartney said late last year that a digital release was imminent. Macworld would be the place for that announcement to be made.

What are your predictions? Comment below and let’s see how we did tomorrow after the Steve Jobs keynote.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones

January 3, 2008

Wireless HD, big home storage and more: What's Next in '08

Just before New Year’s, I posted a list of technologies that made my 2007. Now here are some things I’m looking forward to in 2008.

Bear in mind that I’m not a financial analyst or a soothsayer. Most of these predications are based on current trends and holding up a finger to try to figure out which way the wind is blowing. We’ll know a lot more about the year ahead after Apple Inc. announces its new wares at Macworld this month and after the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Wireless HD — There’s already some buzz about this technology going into CES. First the trend was to take all that high-definition information and squeeze it into one wire that can carry both sound and video (the current fave, HDMI). Now there’s a move to eliminate the wire altogether and create technology that can transmit high-def signals between devices wirelessly (say, from your cable box to your wall-mounted plasma TV set). Similarly some media streaming boxes can receive HD-quality videos, photos or music from a home server or PC and display it on your television. Both of these will likely be expensive at first (most media streamers are about $200 to $300 now and offer limited functionality with the myriad file formats you may have), but as with all things in home theater, prices probably will fall quickly, and the technology may become ubiquitous.

Teeny laptops — The big rumor going into Macworld is that Apple will unveil a 13-inch ultraportable notebook computer or tablet PC. It would feature a large touchpad that would incorporate some of the gesture-based technology featured in the iPhone. For a portable device, 13 inches is not that small. Let’s think of something bigger than an iPhone or BlackBerry but smaller than a small laptop. You start to get into a space where interfaces, storage and the simple logistics of carrying it around become a problem. What do you do with a device that doesn’t fit in your pocket or purse, but it is too small to bust out a laptop bag? Such was the unfortunate problem with Palm’s Foleo device, which was greeted with derision when it was announced last year. Let’s hope that if Apple is going in this direction, the company figures out a way to make it work without a $2,500+ price tag.

Big, honkin’ wired storage — I’m convinced this will be the year when we see a killer device for home storage at a reasonable price. The Drobo has gained some acclaim for its ease of use: you plug hard drives into it and it automatically backs up data and acts as readily available storage. But obviously these devices aren’t so easy to create, as Microsoft Corp. recently learned with its Home Server product. Our dream device would hold a terrabyte of data (about 1,000 gigabytes), be easily available on a home network through a secure wireless or Ethernet connection and would automatically back up its data to an off-site data center for true peace of mind. It would be as easy to set up as Apple’s Time Machine and would cost less than $500. We’d like a pony, too, while we’re dreaming.

Attack of the iPhone clones — I expect to hear a lot about mobile phones that incorporate full-screen touch technology and plenty of storage for music and video from CES. It’s been a year since the iPhone was originally announced, and that’s just enough time for other companies to have borrowed some of those ideas and incorporated them into new phone designs. Will Apple itself trump them with a new version of the iPhone? I doubt it, at least in the near term. If we see a new iPhone soon, it’ll be a refinement of the concept with a few new bells and whistles, not a total redesign.

HD-DVD or Blu-ray? How about both? — As many consumers continue to sit out the next-generation DVD format war, PC makers will start to make the decision easier with combo drives that play both formats. Hewlett-Packard Co. just announced a PC model that does that, and there’s speculation that Apple will either refresh its entire computer line with Blu-ray-playing optical drives or drives that play both formats. Microsoft, too, may be incorporating built-in HD-DVD drives into new versions of the Xbox 360 console. That rumor has been around a while, but this year it finally feels as if it could really happen. Now if we can just get those combo players for the living room to dip below $500…

Cable/satellite/fiber showdown — The war to offer HD programming will heat up even more as cable companies, satellite TV providers, phone companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon’s FIOS service all compete for your TV/phone/Internet service dollars. I foresee a price war, lots of deals seeking to lock you in to a two-year commitment and more feature-rich DVR and on-demand technologies. It’ll be a good time to shop around as these behemoths compete with one another and other media threats such as downloadable movie rentals (like Netflix’s set-top box) and other Internet-based content.

Big, big, big, big TVs — According to reports, a 150-inch Panasonic HDTV will be shown at CES. Is this the beginning of the end of our civilization? Maybe not, but people want giant TVs, and 60-inch LCDs are no longer just a dream. Bigger TVs will of course continue to get cheaper, but it won’t be out of the realm of possibility to start seeing TVs in stores pushing 80 or 100 inches.

Got any predictions for the year ahead? Post them below in the comments.

Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, TV

December 28, 2007

Tech that made my 2007

It’s list-making time for journalists, where we will spend the two slowest weeks of the year with ruminations on the year that was, with an eye toward story budgets for the months ahead.

I already named my videogames of the year, but here’s a look at some of the consumer technology that made me happy this year. (Let’s let bygones be bygones on the technologies that crashed and burned, shall we?)

The iPhone — No conversation about technology of the year would be complete without Apple’s wonderphone, which dominated headlines in the first six months of they year. The iPhone is by no means perfect, but it aspires toward perfection, something that seems anathema to the clumsy cell phone interfaces we’ve learned to live with. Sticker shock over the initial price, $600, soon gave way to wonder as Apple fans and converts learned that the phone remarkably lived up to most of the hype. It also got people to stand in lines and feel like they were part of a communications revolution. I still don’t own an iPhone (first it was the price tag and then the idea that a faster-network version may be rolling out soon), but it remains high on my list of wanted items. Unless something else comes along, I’m sure I’ll own an iPhone in 2008.

Faster, more ubiquitous wireless — We take it for granted that most coffee shops in Austin have free wireless Internet access and that a WiFi hotspot always seems like it’s just around the corner. Try traveling to the Rio Grande Valley, where you typically have to hit a Starbucks and pay for the privilege of getting online. Austin continues to be a great place to get online wirelessly. Routers continued to improve this year, with more Wireless-N products rolling out. I bought an Airport Express router and a Macbook this year and found my home network to be more stable and much faster. Let’s hear it for cutting the cord. In ‘08, here’s hoping cell phone networks catch up.

Better mapping, less getting lost — Google Maps continued to cement its status as the killer app of navigation (MapQuest who? Yahoo Maps what?), adding street views to its already robust features. New services are continuing to roll out that add GPS-like functions to even the lowliest cell phones. And GPS navigation devices were one of the hot holiday gifts this year as prices continued to drop and functionality improved. Stopping and asking for directions is beginning to feel so 2006.

OSX Leopard — Yes, there’s a lot of Apple on this list, but they had a stellar year. The latest Mac operating system soared where Microsoft’s Vista stumbled, offering an elegant, speedy computing environment with relatively few bugs. Every day that passes, more people get frustrated with Windows and decide to go Mac.

Amazon gets into MP3s — Here’s one area where Apple wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree: Its iTunes store has begun to feel bloated and complacent, while Amazon.com’s upstart MP3 store is completely copy-protection-free and in some cases, cheaper. I’m looking at a list of $5.99 albums and free downloads and am impressed with the lengths that Amazon is going to woo customers. Competition is good.

HDTV goes mainstream — It felt like it took forever, but the switch to digital TVs is finally really happening. According to news from today, more than 50 percent of U.S. homes have at least one digital TV. Now the hard part: creating products that don’t force consumers to have to know the difference between 720p, 1080i, 1080p and all the other useless standards associated with high-definition TV.

HD content gets better — I hate the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray format war as much as anybody, but you know what? The movies look outstanding on a good HDTV. I just watched “Ratatouille” on Blu-Ray a few nights ago, and it blew me away. Once the player prices dip below $100, it won’t really matter: Many people will grumble, but go ahead and buy both. Everybody else will forgo high-def discs altogether and rely on downloading services, cable, satellite or over-the-air programming to get their HD fix.

My friend Flickr — The birth of my daughter in August made me appreciate the photo sharing site Flickr even more. From the hospital’s wireless Internet, I was able to quickly upload birth pictures, send out an e-mail to relatives and let them see our new arrival almost instantly. I love the way Flickr works and have yet to see anything that rivals it. (Although I do use the offline version of Picassa to store my phone and do minor photo editing.)

Storage gets cheaper and bigger — Hard drives, flash drives and memory card prices dropped so quickly that by the end of the year, you could score hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes worth of storage for about $50. It’s significant because we are becoming digital packrats: All our digitized music, photos, movies and other data need a place to live and a place to be backed up. Expect more whole-home storage solutions and something a friend just turned me on to: off-site backups. Taking the time to do careful backups to an external hard drive does you no good in the case of theft, fire or flood. Expect the next storage revolution to be safe, secure places online to stash your digital valuables.

I’m sure I’m missing plenty of items here, but it’s almost 2008 and time to start looking ahead. I’ll see you in January. Have a safe and happy new year!

Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Baby-daddy, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, Shopping, TV, Videogames

December 27, 2007

Big tech moves during the holidays

I’m not sure why companies announce big news the week of Christmas. It’s like writing an important letter, dropping it in the middle of a field and running away quickly. Nevertheless, the world does not stop for holidays or dinner-induced tryptophan comas.

Today’s big tech news is that Amazon has added Warner Music to its copy protection-free MP3 store. That brings the number of songs on Amazon’s store to close to 3 million, according to Techcrunch.

Maybe Apple is too focused on movie rentals right now to continue to try to push for more DRM-free music on iTunes. That’s a shame because it looked like they had some momentum going after dropping the price on its EMI songs to 99 cents.

On a whim, I downloaded a track on Amazon yesterday that I’d heard on Sirius radio, “Effigy” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. As in my previous experience, I found the song quickly, did a one-click purchase, and watched it quickly arrive and get automatically transferred to my iTunes library in seconds. I’m starting to think Amazon is going to give iTunes a real run for its money. I already prefer shopping on Amazon for songs now.

The other big news that perked my ears is that Sony is getting out of the rear-projection HDTV business. That’s a shame because their most recent top-of-the-line RPTVs, the XBR A3000s, have a phenomenal picture and actually weigh less than like-sized LCDs (which contain a lot of glass and weigh a ton).

I’d been pricing the A3000s and might still pick one up before they’re gone for good, maybe during the pre-Super Bowl sales. I have a rear-projection Toshiba set we’ve had for about four years and have been thrilled with it. We just need something that takes up less space and the newer rear projections are only about 18- to 20-inches deep with comparable picture quality to plasma and LCD.

I’d love to get a Bravia LCD, but to get similar features and picture quality to one of the A3000s I’d have to pay more than $3,000, which just seems absurd. When prices on top-of-theline LCDs drop, maybe we won’t miss rear projection TVs, but most videophiles will tell you that high-end RPTVs are a great bang-for-your-buck proposition right now.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal really likes the Dell all-in-one XPS, comparing it very favorably to the Apple iMac. That’s great news for Dell, but is anyone reading PC reviews this week?

Speaking of Apple, check out the fluff piece about Apple stores in the New York Times. I can’t argue against any points in the article, but it seems like another swipe at other electronic retailers, especially after this devastating story that ran earlier in the year.

So, just to be clear: The New York Times LOVES the Apple Store. I don’t blame them.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Internet, Shopping, TV

December 17, 2007

Gift Guide Bonus Gifts 5: Cool speakers, pen computer

I know we like to pretend we’re all above the holiday shopping pressure. It’s not about the gifts, we tell ourselves, as we scramble to get to the mall for a few more precious hours to finish off with our Christmas shopping list

In any case, here are a few more ideas for gifts, items that didn’t quite make our previous gift guides:

JBL has two very attractive sets of speakers. It’s very hard to buy a horrible sounding set of speakers these days (unless you spend under $100 or go for something wireless). With the assurance that a decent set of speakers will sound pretty good as long as you’re not trying to amplify sound in a stadium, you can afford to look for something stylish. Most speakers are ugly. These are not.

The $130 JBL Spot sound system is a simple set of speakers that are appropriate to hook up to a computer or an iPod in an office or dorm room. The speakers look like little shiny pods and have removable covers in different colors. You’re not going to get Dolby Digital surround sound out of these (it’s a “2.1-channel” system), but you will get pretty speakers that probably sound pretty good.

For something more robust, you could spring for JBL’s Cinema Sound CS480 Home Theater Speaker System. For $800, you get a stylish set of five speakers and a subwoofer for home theater sound.

For serious home theater enthusiasts, 7.1-channel sound is where it’s at these days (seven speakers plus a subwoofer), but if you care more about nice-looking speakers that look good with your new HDTV than the latest in hi-fi sound, this set might be good enough.

And last, there’s the Fly Fusion Pentop Computer, a $80 USB pen that can record handwritten notes to a computer and translate them to word processing or e-mail documents. There are homework helper modules available for the Pentop to assist with writing, algebra, Spanish and other subjects. It sounds great in theory, but I’m not sure it would have been too useful for me in school: my handwriting is so bad I can barely read it myself sometimes.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Shopping

November 14, 2007

Slightly late first impressions of OS X Leopard

I ordered a new Apple MacBook last week and it finally arrived today (it’s a long way from Shanghai). So far, I’m very impressed with it after just a few hours of play. The screen is slightly smaller than my old iBook G4 (13.3” compared to 14”), but it’s a brighter display and the resolution seems a bit crisper.

I haven’t gotten to explore Leopard fully yet, but the things that make great Mac laptops are all there from the beginning: I was able to import all of my settings, passwords, bookmarks, applications and files from my old laptop simply by connecting a Firewire cable from the old computer to the new. It took less than 20 minutes and when it was done, all my familiar icons were on the desktop. My photos were all in iPhoto and all my iTunes music and TV shows were ready to go. There was no need to reinstall applications like Microsoft Word or to reconfigure my wireless network preference and Firefox bookmarks.

Front Row, which wasn’t available when my old laptop was purchased, is fantastic, as is the included tiny white remote controller. The built-in iSight camera, which has also been around for a while, works wonderfully with iChat and its new video backgrounds, even with low lighting conditions.

Finder improvements like Cover Flow and Quick Look are impressive, but I’m not sure yet how useful they’ll be in everyday use. I love the idea of being able to view PDFs, Word documents and other files without opening applications, but given how quickly applications open on the Macbook, it may not be that much of a necessity.

The new Dock looks sharp and the Draft-N wireless Internet blazes with the Airport Extreme Router I have set up at home. Web pages appear quickly and podcasts from the Apple Store were quick to download. The computer itself is fast. Applications pop open almost instantly and I’m getting a lot less of the spinning beach ball than on the old machine.

Now, the not-so-good: The semi-transparent menus are stylish, but a misfire in terms of usability. It would be nice to be able to disable them, but depending on your screen background, the menus can become close to unreadable. There are workarounds, but it feels like a mistake on Apple’s part to force transparency on users.

Time Machine sounds fantastic, but it requires an external hard drive to work. I have one, but it already has all my Windows desktop data backed up on it. In order to use Time Machine, I’d have to completely erase the contents of the external drive. There’s no way for a Leopard Time Machine backup to peacefully co-exist with content already on the drive. And as of now, there’s no way to do backups to an external drive connected to the Airport Extreme’s USB port.

“Stacks” are a mixed bag. The “Grid” view is much easier to use than the “Fan” view. For some weird reason, Stacks chooses the first file in a folder as the folder icon and there’s no easy way to change it. Once again, Mac users come to the rescue with their own fix for an Apple oversight.

So, overall, Leopard is a winner for me running on a new laptop. Some upgraders to the OS have had problems when not doing a clean install. For new Mac purchasers, though, a built-in copy of Leopard on a brand new machine promises some handy new features along with the streamlined, speedy performance we’ve come to expect from OS X.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Applications, Computers

November 8, 2007

Shorties: Dell Dude spotted; 'South Park' and 'Guitar Hero' recap

The “You’re Getting a Dell, Dude” dude has resurfaced … at a New York restaurant called Tortilla Flats as a waiter.

I’m not going to cast aspersions because there but for the grace of Statesman Editor Rich Oppel go I … I frequently imagine myself getting fired for libeling someone in this blog and ending up working late shifts at Chuy’s. Mmmm … endless chips and salsa.

Anyway, in case you were curious whatever happened to the Dell ad guy, there’s your answer. Looks as if he turned his life around after a bit of trouble. He’s also in a band with some other former actors called Whale. You know you want to hear their demo tape.

(Link from Engadget.)

Last night’s “South Park” was cute and clever (you’d never know it from the episode title). In it, Stan and Kyle get signed to a record label for their co-op playing of the video game “Guitar Hero.” The episode follows the dissolution of the duo’s pretend band, Stan’s addition to the video game “Heroin Hero” (in which, hilariously, you chase a dragon through a forest but never catch it) and their eventual reconciliation.

Rather than go dirty and over-the-top like some episodes, this one was straight-forward and funny. Stand-out moment: the hollow clacks of Stan’s new bandmate playing the “Guitar Hero” controller songs at a restaurant. Stan’s dad playing his real guitar to the disgust of Stan’s friends was also pretty great. The episode re-airs multiple times this week on Comedy Central.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Computers, Internet, TV, Videogames

November 6, 2007

Rumors are flying: an Apple tablet PC coming soon?

CNET UK is reporting that Apple may be working with computer hardware company Asus on a tablet computer.

The source is a person or persons at Asus, who apparently not only spilled the beans about the new platform, but later confirmed that it will be a new, original design, according to CNET.

This definitely seems to go along with Apple’s recent “Touching is good” moves, like what it’s done with the iPhone and iPod Touch’s finger-friendly multi touch-user interfaces.

Apple filed a few patents this year that led to speculation of a revamped touchpad on its laptops that would feature similar functions to what you can do with an iPhone (say, resizing photos or browsing items with finger touches).

Apple’s new OS version, Leopard, with its integrated “Cover Flow” file menus would seem a natural for something like this. It all makes a lot of sense on an Apple evolutionary level.

Now, my big question — would it be silly of me to buy one of Apple’s recently refreshed Macbooks at this point?

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets

October 25, 2007

Early OS X Leopard reviews: extremely positive

The two titans of consumer technology reviewing, David Pogue and Walt Mossberg, have weighed in on Apple’s new version of its OS X operating system, Leopard, which comes out on Friday.

Both reviewers say that Leopard is easy to use and install, and that it’s a bargain compared with Windows Vista based on its backward compatibility with older Apple hardware and its one-size-fits-all pricing.

Mossberg’s comparisons with Vista are particularly devastating, including the time it takes to boot up and restart.

I don’t plan on picking up Leopard myself for my aging iBook G4 anytime soon, but I’m waiting for the next version of the Macbook to come out to replace it; it wont’ hurt my buying decision that Leopard will already come installed on the new Mac.

David Pogue’s OS Leopard review in The New York Times.

Walt Mossberg’s OS Leopard review in the Wall Street Journal.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Internet, Shopping

October 23, 2007

Tuesday morning link drop

A lot going on this week. Here are the highlights:

In case you missed it late yesterday afternoon, here’s the low-down on Apple’s earnings. Record Mac sales, more than a million iPhone sales, sizable stock price jump. Microsoft is far from vulnerable, but it’s clear that a lot of people aren’t happy with Windows Vista. Could this be a sign of growing defection to Mac OS? The Magic 8-Ball says, “Signs points to yes …”
The new horror videogame “Clive Barker’s Jericho” is out at retail today and available for GameTap.com subscribers as part of the service. I know a guy — it’s totally not me, I assure you — who was a total Clive Barker geek as a teenager. He even stood in line to get his autograph in Dallas once. I will treasure it … er, I mean this guy will treasure it always.
Dell’s high-end gaming division Alienware has introduced a service called AlienExchange where you can trade in your consumer electronics toward the purchase of one of their blazing PCs. Sure, trade-ins are nice, but wouldn’t eBay be just as efficient? I don’t know if it’s wise for Alienware. Does a division known for excess and style really wants to be in the pawn shop business?
The Dell Lounge has a video interview with Richard Garriott about “Tabula Rasa.” Joe Stafford and I are still playing the beta version of the game, which will have an end-of-beta celebration on Friday.
Twitter’s abuzz about a site called Seesmic that allows users to easily post videos directly from a Web cam. The site’s in its very early stages, but early invitees are already posting videos on it like this one.

Happy Tuesday!

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet, Videogames

August 1, 2007

More Dell laptop delivery woes: XPS line affected?

Though it’s not official, we got a response about what’s up with Dell laptop delivery delays.

An industry-wide LCD/glass shortage? Jeepers.

According to News.com, the issue is indeed affecting other laptop sellers and Dell’s own high-end XPS line.

If you need a laptop for school or work and you need it right away, you may be better off buying in-store. If you’re waiting for prices to drop on Windows laptops, you might be better off placing your order now.

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping

Dell customer has a problem

We helped someone with a Dell order problem they had before, so let’s see if we can do it again:

A Dell customer, Kate, writes in:

I have a situation with Dell that perhaps you can give me some insight into.
I ordered a new Dell Inspiron laptop on July 8 and was given a July 20 ship date. I thought that was a rather long “build” time but figured it was due to the laptop being new. Now the ship date is August 28!
I spent over two hours trying to find a live person in Texas to talk to me about this order and never did reach anyone in Texas. I spoke with people in India, Oklahoma, Idaho, and finally in Panama City… never got through to Austin. What gives?
Have you heard about problems with Dell’s delivery on this new laptop? Has this awful customer service become the norm at Dell now? I always loved Dell and now I get this type of run around? I’m so confused.
I’m not just some computer geek who wants her “new toy” to play with here. I teach online business courses and must “sign in” 5/7 days a week for my job. I leave Friday morning for an international conference of business professors (you know, the ones who teach all those business students who might become potential Dell customers) from all over the world (7,000 of them!) in Philadelphia. I must have a laptop to take with me in order to do my job! But I can’t get a straight answer out of anyone at Dell.
My husband, also a business professor, toured the Dell facilities last year as part of another academic conference. He was told that all laptop production is done in Malaysia since they are light enough to build offshore and fly them into Austin to get shipped to the customers. I mentioned this to one of the India reps and he assured me that they were all getting built in Austin. Huh? He even put me on hold while he “called the plant” for information.
Thanks for listening to my angst with this. I guess my real question for you, living in Austin as you do, is do you have any Dell contacts that might give us a straight answer on the problems with this new laptop? If they had been up front with me on problems a week ago, I’d have changed my order to something I could use. Now I’m going to have to find a laptop that is physically available in Atlanta since I leave in two days if August 28 is truly the best they can do.
Regards,
Kathryn

I told Kate that short of calling customer support, her best bet would be to post on Dell’s customer blog, Direct2Dell.

Here’s her response:

Thank you for trying to help with this! I spent (literally) 64 minutes (on hold for four different transfers) this morning trying to reach a supervisor to explain why this incident caused so much of a problem (to me) and why, from a business standpoint, Dell corporate needs to be made aware of the communication issues here.
In my case, I had to cancel my order because I need one this Friday morning for my trip and they said that all the new colors and screens for the Inspiron laptops are back-ordered. Seems funny to me that today’s back-orders are causing a problem for someone whose order was placed almost four weeks ago. My guess is that other orders got pushed ahead of my single computer order.
So, unless your contacts can push a magic button and put my particular Inspiron on a direct flight to Atlanta from Malaysia, I think I’m stuck. Not to mention my chagrin when all those people I emailed with pictures of my “new green computer” who will be asking about it at the conference… when I’m obviously not using a “green” computer. Sigh.
If someone from Dell contacts you, you can give them my order number: 736627210 with the understanding that my brother (who originally ordered it for me) canceled the order this morning. I’d be THRILLED to give them my credit card number again, though! :)
Dell is also, as I found out, in the middle of their annual back-to-school rush… which doesn’t help matters any. If I’d thought I’d be running into that, I would have placed my order back in June.
Have a great day!

It sounds like Dell is doing gangbusters business on those colorful Inspirons. (They are very sexy.) Can someone help Kate?

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping

July 6, 2007

Xbox's $1.15 billion red ring of death and other links

I spent the 4th of July following meat-grilling technology instead of videogames and iPhones and I think the investment in attention was well-spent. We bought a new gas grill (our old one was falling apart) and I can honestly say that sometimes upgrading has a direct impact on flavor. Good marinade also helps.

We return from a tiny, tiny vacation to discover that Microsoft has not only acknowledged that its Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death epidemic is an unacceptable failure rate that must be corrected with a three-year extended warranty for all 360 owners. This is great news if you’ve got one, but also chilling; you almost figure that at some point, your trusty system is going to go.

My brother has already been through this repair cycle; he was impressed with the speed at which he was issued a box to send the broken system back, but anytime you have to send in a piece of electronics for repair, it’s always a bummer, no matter how well you’re treated.

Meanwhile, in Sony land, there are rumors that a $100 price cut on the $599 version of the PlayStation3 is imminent. Sony is denying the cut, but the rumors are adamant. A supposed Circuit City promo is not helping squelch that rumor. The question is whether this potential price cut will be retail-wide. Stay tuned.

The Washington Post examines videogame junkets. We don’t accept junkets from game companies, but I’ve seen quite a few people who have when I’ve gone to industry events on our company’s dime. It’s rarely as flagrant as trips to Russia and Italy, but it does happen. I hate to generalize, but a lot of online gaming sites seem to have no problem with accepting flights and hotels from the companies whose future games they’ll one day review.

Can’t afford an iPhone? Why not have mom knit you one?

At least you won’t have to pay $85.95 to replace its battery someday.

Also on Slashdot… AMD processor benchmarks debated.

And a palate cleanser: Ruxpin!

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, Shopping, Videogames

June 28, 2007

Dell goes for sexy in Korea

We knew Dell Inc. was looking to change its staid image, but aside from its introduction of colorful new laptops, how can the company sex-up its line of computers?

Fake-tattoo’d, miniskirt-wearing models sashaying in Korea, that’s how.

Should we just call them “Michael’s Angels?”

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Austin, Computers

June 6, 2007

Dell + Wal-Mart = $698 and $498 computers

According to Engadget, the specs for the new Dell Inc. desktop systems offered by Wal-Mart are similar to systems offered on Dell.com with only very small price differences. You’ll save on shipping if you buy at Wal-Mart, but these aren’t systems you’ll be able to customize online before you buy.

Although these specs are still unconfirmed by Dell, commenters on the site, who are said to include Wal-Mart employees and eagle-eyed mailout-watchers, are saying the information is legit and that when shoppers visit Wal-Mart, starting Sunday they should be able to find these systems on shelves.

The two systems are a Windows Vista Home Premium computer with a 19-inch LCD monitor running an Athlon X2 3600+ processor for $698 and a $498 similarly configured system minus the monitor.

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping

April 26, 2007

Thursday links: Apple, PlayStation Eye, Joost, Refrigerator Raider

Are Apple’s financial results from yesterday evidence of Mac OS making some real headway against Windows Vista? If you couple that story with some of the more telling comments from this recent Slashdot post, signs point to yes.

The PlayStation Eye has been announced for the PlayStation3. It’s the successor to the EyeToy and boy is it ugly. Still, it seems more than capable of bringing console Webcamming to the next level with four-channel audio and 120 frames-per-second video capturing.

Video/TV site Joost.com is expected to officially launch early next week. We haven’t been invited, so we can’t tell you how this may be better or worse than other video sites out there, but this one has a lot of buzz and investing going for it, at least. Here’s a review of the beta version for the meantime.

Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures. My brother is ecstatic that a commercial from his childhood has found its way online. I must admit, it is a cool ad:

Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Computers, Internet, Videogames

April 13, 2007

Shorty short tech shorts

It’s Friday and you don’t have time to read a long blog post. The weather’s bad, Kevin Durant’s leaving UT and your iPod just ran out of juice. It’s all right. I’ll keep these nice and short:

The hybrid car/electric car battery market heats up with this announcement from Nissan.
Best games I’m playing right now: the phenomenal “God of War II” for PlayStation2 (though you can play it on a PS3) and the addictive PopCap PC game “Peggle” (my short review runs in the paper Tuesday).
New games out you might want to check out: “Super Paper Mario” for Wii; “Guitar Hero II” for Xbox 360. (Beware, though: There’ve been reports of guitar controller problems and grousing about the price of downloadable songs.)
I’m sad that I can watch “The Prestige” on Blu-ray DVD, but not “Children of Men.”
Were we wrong about Twitter? Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t feel like it’s growing all that much in April the way it did during its meteoric rise in March.
Apple delays its new version of OS X, Leopard, until October. If you’re thinking about buying a Mac computer, try to wait till then. The iPhone is scheduled for release in late June, by the way.
I started to install my new hard drive last night, but got cold feet while Seagate’s excellent Disc Wizard transferring my C: drive to it. Decided to put it off till the weekend. Still, I’d forgotten that buying an OEM piece of hardware means no cables, no manual, no box, nothing. The hard drive came in bubble wrap and plastic in a plain brown box.
Have a great weekend!

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Videogames

March 1, 2007

Around the Web, Thursday afternoon edition

Yes, you can own a bit of the Intel shell building for the not-very-low-at-all price of $20 via this Web site.

I don’t know what’s stopping them from putting a bunch of gravel from their driveway into a container and calling it history, but I should really just relax because if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to completely trust the Internet.

(Link via Austinist)

Game publisher Electronic Arts sent a breathless press release announcing that music from all its games is now available on iTunes and that you can find out more about this monumental stride ahead for humanity at their Web site.

Anyone who’s played any “Madden” game knows that these EA-licensed songs have a way of burrowing into your brain like a “Star Trek II” space creature. Joystiq.com notes that not all the songs are on iTunes that you might want.

But Lily Allen is today’s featured artist on the EA Trax site, so as far as I’m concerned, all is forgiven. Oh, Lily Allen … sometimes I just sit here and daydream about your charming accent.

Wrigley (the gum people) are offering a minty treat for Wii owners. Their “Candystand” Web site features games you can play on the Nintendo Wii via the game console’s Internet Channel browser. The site (which you’ll have to enter manually unless you’re accessing this blog from your Wii, in which case I’d say, yay you!) is wii.candystand.com.

I haven’t been home to try these out yet, but I’ll hit you up, blog-entry style, if they deserve your attention.

You’ll have to weigh for yourself whether the thrill of free Wii games is worth the humiliation of playing titles based on the Altoids and Big Red brands.

Here’s an alternative: Wii games from Homestarrunner.com are available at www.videlectrix.com/vii/.

I have taken a vow of silence when it comes to posting negative things about Dell, so I’ll just let this site weigh in on the current Dell/Linux kerfuffle.

Even using the word “Kerfuffle” there might violate my vow. Would “Foofarah” have been better?

All right, fine — because I’ve already broken my vow, I might as well tell you my Dell joke:

Q: How many Dell executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: 11, but they’ve all left the company. We’ll let you know when the new management team is ready to take on the lightbulb-changing task.

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers, Food, Internet, Shopping, Videogames

February 12, 2007

We don't hate Dell, we swear . . .

… but on Friday, after I posted an entry about a potential fiery problem that might have been caused by a Dell laptop, I got an e-mail from a reader who sought help on a problem he was having with a Dell Vista upgrade. His e-mail said, in part:

All my conversations have been with foreign customer-service centers, and I’ve been told everything from “there’s NO WAY I’ll get an upgrade from Dell,” to “they’ll give it to me for 50 percent off retail” (a far cry from what I was promised in previous communication). On Dell’s Chat Session ID 9105806 (for any of you out there with access to it), I had one person go so far as to suggest I just go out and buy the retail version (Dell wants to KEEP customers, don’t they?) … In my book, a man is only as good as his word; and Dell is not fairing so well with me.

I e-mailed the gentleman back and told him he might want to check out consumerist.com or contact Dell through customer-support e-mail. Today, I saw this entry about Dell Vista upgrade delays on Engadget.

It seems like our reader wasn’t alone.

I’d be reluctant to post two entries in a row here about Dell problems if a reader hadn’t specifically asked for help here. We probably hear a lot more about these issues because we’re in Dell’s backyard than we do about other companies, but let’s just hope for all concerned that Dell is able to get a handle on the Vista upgrade issues.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping

February 9, 2007

A fire in Maine: bad Dell laptop news?

Consumerist.com is running a letter from a Biddeford, Maine, reader who says his house burned down and that the probable cause of the fire was a Dell Inspiron 1200.

Of course, you can’t expect Dell to instantly address an incident where there may be some doubt as to whether its product had anything to do with a fire, but if the story’s legit, the loss of a 130-year-old ranch home and all of the family’s worldly possessions might be worth some investigation. Especially after last year’s overheating battery fiasco.

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers

February 7, 2007

The future is bright. No, really!

If “The Jetsons” has taught us anything, it’s that the future won’t ever get here fast enough and when it does, it probably won’t include the pneumatic travel tubes we all crave.

But loving technology is about loving possibility, so here’s a few things that aren’t too far-fetched that I’m really looking forward to:

That the iPhone works as promised.
Combo high-definition DVD players get so cheap and work so well, they make the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war moot.
A file standard emerges for online stores that sell online movies and TV shows, allowing you to move them around as you like and play them with any standard video player or portable device. This one doesn’t seem very likely at the present, but could happen as the multitude of competitors thins out.
A “Worms” game on Xbox Live.
Hybrid car prices to continue dropping.
The death of DRM (digital rights management).
For Google to blow everybody’s mind with some new technology they’ve been keeping under wraps.
Viruses and spyware get people so frustrated that they give a hard look at what operating system they should be using.
Feasible pneumatic people-transporting tubes.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, Shopping, Videogames

January 30, 2007

Vista Day: What do you think?

Apple got to declare a national geek holiday when it announced the iPhone earlier this month, so why shouldn’t Bill Gates get to have a little fun on consumer Windows Vista launch day (today)? It’s been a long time coming, and even if the buzz on Vista is that it’s about as revolutionary as, say… the second “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, that doesn’t mean Microsoft shouldn’t get some credit.

I’ve got my head pretty far up the intestine of the tech industry, and I still have no idea whether I should upgrade my Windows XP machine or which edition I should get if I as willing to pony up the cash. Do I want “Ultimate?” “Home?” “Grumpy?” “Dopey?” “Shemp?”

I think I’m going to hold off for a while, at least three to six months, while bugs are ironed out, and I figure out whether I made a huge mistake dropping $900 on my most recent PC upgrade instead of just putting that money toward a new Mac.

So tell us what you think. Will you be upgrading to Vista? Have you already? Do you care? Leave us a comment below.

Before you answer, check out clips of Bill Gates on “The Daily Show” and then gaze upon the all-powerful visage of The Bill:

Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Computers, Shopping, TV

January 18, 2007

Around the Web, post-ice crisis

I thought the ice storm was over until I tried to drive to work today and ended up pinned on I-35 for an extra 45 minute as huge numbers of 18-wheelers surrounded my tiny car.

Still, you can’t beat the entertainment value of watching enormous sheets of ice fall off the back of vehicles as they speed up an incline.

Here’s what’s going on today:

Bill Gates says that the Xbox 360’s exciting new IPTV technology (which theoretically will allow you to PVR shows to your Xbox over the tubes of the Nets) is not going to take up hard drive space. Instead, the new content will be streamed, eliminating some of the hard drive size concerns as well as getting rid of the pesky copyright issues of what happens to that content once you have it on your hard drive. This is a huge shocker for me. I’m skeptical about whether there’s bandwidth in most users’ homes to make this work without dragging down the whole home network, but then the 360’s whole online strategy has been a winner so far, so who am I to doubt?
Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal damns Microsoft Vista with faint praise, chanting the mantra that most of what it’s got, Mac OS already has. Did I make a huge mistake upgrading my PC hardware instead of just buying a new Mac? Maybe I’ll just upgrade my iBook when the Jaguar Mac OS comes out.
Tony Long at Wired argues for the plight of the telecommutin’ man, but I think it’s a bit too short-sighted to assume that everyone who works in front of a computer is capable of doing great work at home and has the discipline to self-manage. I found myself stuck working at home the past two days, and the minute my toes got cold under the desk, I just wanted to crawl into bed with cats. A recent Network World story suggests that telecommuting can kill a career, but this largely works on the assumption that telecommuters want to someday move up the corporate ladders to become managers, as some Slashdot posters point out. Some of us got out of management to have more flexibility in our personal lives and telecommuting offers a break from the up-the-ladder rat race. Did I just call myself a rat? Oh dear.
My satellite dish seems to have thawed out, but not before I made the silly mistake of trying to get onto a slick stepladder with a jar of salt. You can imagine how that turned out.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Applications, Austin, Computers, Internet, TV, Videogames

October 9, 2006

Biennial desktop upgrade

Every two years ago, especially around the time a new technology cycle ramps up and prices fall quickly, I get the hankering to upgrade my desktop computer.

Sometimes a data disaster or a particularly good deal on a video card will make for incremental updates, but a full-on motherboard + processor changeover is something you really have to commit to. For one thing, taking apart your whole computer and putting it all back together with new components is a weekend project. Being extra-extra careful, the whole process can take four or five hours and that’s not counting if something goes wrong and you need to troubleshoot why your computer won’t post (that is, starting up the first; the flat PC speaker beep is its birthcry).

My last upgrade was to a AMD Athlon 2600+ Mobile processor (which works just fine in a desktop motherboard). I bought a new case and power supply at the time to accommodate the new system. The changeup also required me to buy a new kind of RAM. And while I was in there, I updated my IDE interface to rounder connectors that aren’t as restrictive of airflow as older ribbon-style cables.

I also spread some Arctic Silver 5 on the processor and upgraded from the stock heatsink/fan that came with the processor bundle. The result was a speedy machine that overclocks well, up to about 2.3 GHz, far beyond the 1.8 GHz the processor was meant to run. It’s been running fairly stable for the last two years.

Recently, though, the price on dual-core processors has fallen so far that the performance jump has finally made the upgrade worthwhile. Couple that with some power supply problems I’ve been having and an aging video card, and it was time to rebuild.

So I started haunting online forums, checking out prices on newegg.com, scrutinizing the Fry’s circulars as if they were Dead Data Scrolls, looking for good deals. Sure, I thought about just buying a new computer for just a few hundred dollars more, but my problem with computers is you can’t always pick the components you want and except for very expensive custom PCs, you usually don’t get a decent videocard with most pre-built machines. Sure, there are very inexpensive PCs (and the thought of buying a Mac desktop did cross my mind), but they rarely offer the performance you get from picking your own top-of-the-line components and tweaking the BIOS settings yourself.

The upgrade is happening this week. Instead of doing it myself, I’m using a local computer store that charges a flat rate of under $50 for upgrades, but I’m buying everything a la carte and taking it all to them (except for the processor and motherboard, which I’m buying from the store).

The goal was to build a fairly affordable system that will be rock-solid stable (my wife also uses the computer and has little patience for unplanned restarts or system crashes) and run very fast with some room for overclocking without exotic liquid cooling or aftermarket processor heatsinks. It would also need to be able to run the latest PC games at high speeds and be able to upgrade to Windows Vista next year when the time comes.

Here’s what’s being upgraded:

Processor: Intel Duo 2 Core E6400 (runs at 2.18 GHz but is commonly overclocked well beyond 3 GHz with the right components and cooling). I’ve been running on AMD Athlon processors for a while now, but this time it looks like Intel scored a coup with its Duo 2 Core line. They run cool and efficient and very, very fast if the campfire stories are to be believed. This processor is about $100 cheaper than the next step up and the performance on it is said to be stellar. About $225.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3. Choosing a motherboard was by far the hardest part of the process. Depending on whom you ask, some motherboards overclock well, while others are better if you want to run at stock speeds. This motherboard had almost universally good reviews, though it’s considered a mid-range board compared to some of the more deluxe offerings from rival manufacturer ASUS. In this case I tried to balance price with performance. The only downside is that this won’t run a dual-graphics-card configuration (known as SLI for Nvidia cards of Crossfire for ATI cards), but I decided to stick to a single graphics card because I don’t want to mess with trying to eke more performance out of two separate video cards. The board runs about $150, but the prices on it keep dropping as more competitors that run Duo 2 Core processors enter the mix.

Memory: Two gigs of Patriot DDR2 667 MHz memory. Again, balancing price with performance. DDR2 800 memory is theoretically faster, but this particular model is said to overclock well past 800 MHz for a much cheaper price ($181, on sale). Patriot memory is considered to be very stable and worth its premium pricing. Memory prices for DDR2 memory (the emerging standard for newer motherboards) is incredibly high right now. You might find yourself paying more for decent memory than any other component in a new PC right now.

Power Supply: 600W Ultra V series power supply. Fry’s had a sale on these recently: $20 after rebate. You can’t beat that. For newer systems with high-end graphics card, a power supply upgrade is usually necessary. To future-proof your system, you probably shouldn’t go below 500W. Many higher-end power supplies run for more than $100.

Graphics card: Sapphire x1900XT 256 MB. A very well priced high-end card that compromises on memory (most x1900XT cards run at 512 MB) with a negligible performance hit unless you’re running at insanely high monitor resolutions. ATI and Nvidia are price cutting and introducing new card models left and right. A new generation of videocards is pending (those that will run the upcoming Windows DX10 standard in Vista), but if you don’t mind settling for a current-generation card while that all shakes out, there are great deals to be had. About $235 after a mail-in rebate.

Components from my old system moving over include an SATA hard drive, an IDE hard drive partitioned into two drives, a budget Audigy sound card (with a very useful Firewire port) and a DVD drive/burner. There’s also an old SCSI CD-ROM drive and a spare, empty 40 Gig hard drive sitting in my case, but I’m not sure that those components will make it over to the new system.

I’ll be using the same case (assuming everything fits in there; it looks a lot like this one). And before I take it in, I’ll be backing up everything to an external hard drive.

Total price: Right around $900.

Sure, you can get a new mid-range computer for that, but what fun would it be not to be able to do all that shopping?

I’ll let you know how the upgrade goes.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Shopping

September 19, 2006

Dell and Apple to Toshiba: 'Welcome to the club!'

Is no laptop safe from the scourge of Sony-made fiery laptop batteries?

Toshiba has joined the recall madness (though, apparently, not for flaming hotness), and there may be more on the way. There was a report this week that an IBM laptop caught fire at Los Angeles International Airport.

My best advice to laptop owners, short of full firefighting gear, is that when you’re at home, keep the battery in a fireproof cage, away from paper, blue-tip matches or flammable liquids. Do not expose the battery to bright light or to water. And whatever you do, don’t feed it after midnight.

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August 25, 2006

Things hotter than a Sony-made Dell or Apple laptop battery

The very molten core of our sun.
My stove when I’m making Blue-Ribbon Brownies.
The Austin City Limits Festival.
Angelina Jolie before she hooked up with Brad.
The griddle upon which your fajitas are served at a Mexican restaurant.
Tin roof.
A black car idling on IH-35 at 3 p.m. with no air conditioning.
Coffee from Jo’s.
A Hot Pocket that has been microwaved for so long that it has become The Hottest Pocket.
The brow of the guy who has to lug all the replacement batteries into the UPS van.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Computers

August 24, 2006

Apple, Dell and Sony in hot battery Hell

Apple enthusiasts (who, let’s face it, can be a smug lot) suddenly have a lot in common with Dell users — it’s battery recall time!

Apple is recalling 1.8 million Sony batteries, similar to the ones that Dell is recalling to the tune of 4.1 million units.

There’s a Web site to check out if your battery needs replacing, but as of 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday, the site is not accessible. Apple must be getting slammed with page requests. We can only hope that the support server doesn’t run on one of those hot batteries.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers

The Delldrums

I was at a party Friday night for a Web site launch when I met a guy who’s been working at Dell for just shy of a decade.

It used to be that when you met someone from Dell, you’d wonder if they were rich yet and congratulate them on the company’s seemingly always-rising stock price.

Now it’s like talking to someone who has a family member in the hospital. You have to tread lightly and try not to seem callous.

“Oh, wow, how are things going over there?” I asked.

He looked grim. “Battery recall, SEC investigation, stock price. It’s pretty miserable.”

I asked what the mood is at Dell. “They gave us these stock options and everybody called them Golden Handcuffs because that’s what kept you there.” Now, he says, he’s being offered stock options at about $60 a share, far above the $21.51 Dell stock is selling for now, making the options pretty worthless.

At 9 p.m., Tito’s Vodka started offering free drinks, and I hoped that was some small consolation on a Friday night away from Round Rock.

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July 11, 2006

Dell publicity goes 'Kaboom!'

If you Google “Dell” and “Exploding laptop,” you get about 299,000 results, many from blogs and news sources detailing an incident in Japan (caught, unluckily for the company, in photos and posted online) in which a Dell Inc. laptop burst into flames. (See the original Web item here.)

An investigation by engineers concluded that it was the fault of a bad battery, but it was one of two incidents, another involving a bad chip, in a very short time. Despite the millions of nonexploding computers the company sells, the blogosphere, as it is wont to do, is going to latch onto the two machines that did catch fire.

The mainstream media has detailed Dell’s publicity woes as well, including the dust-up between the company and financial analysts, one of whom alerted clients to the potentially bad publicity the exploding laptop seen round the world might cause.

Given that many of its customers probably haven’t even heard about the Japan incident, it’s tough to say what the financial impact will be, but it comes at a time when the company is trying to repair bad buzz about its tech support service, which it has said it will invest $100 million to address.

Is it fair that two laptops flambé out of millions should result in such bad publicity? No, not at all. But as Dell has surely learned over the years, the Web is hardly a fair place. Good luck with that ad campaign.

UPDATE: Blogger Jeff Beckham points out Dell’s new official blog, “One2One,” which just launched this week.

Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet

May 26, 2006

Viiv still alive

Some representatives from Intel Corp. (In case you haven’t heard of them, they’re the ones who compete against AMD) stopped by our offices earlier this week to demonstrate Viiv, which is a cool name (cooler than Nintendo’s “Wii” at least; maybe Nintendo just needed another consonant), but sort of a hard-to-pin-down technology.

Viiv really isn’t a product or a line of products. It’s just a fancy name for a set of specifications that are supposed to tell consumers that the computer they buy meets certain standards for things like streaming high-definition video and doing neat-o home networking. They say that it’s meant to “Simply your digital life,” but like most things technological (and no slam against Intel here; I don’t mean to single them out), that is often a bald-faced, evil lie.

I caught the tail-end of the presentation with Kirk Ladendorf, and in the few minutes they had left, they chatted with me, but didn’t show me much in the way of cool features or even anything on the computer and new-looking peripherals they’d brought and set up in one of our conference rooms.

I asked about TiVo and next-gen game consoles and how Viiv might be incorporated in these consumer-friendly devices. I got answers ranging from, “We don’t really handle that,” to, “We don’t know.” I learned that the whole “Viiv” movement is tied to dual-core processing, which was awesome two years ago, but which now doesn’t seem so impressive. Lots of PCs now have that capability and the upcoming PlayStation3 will have a processor connected to eight other digital cores. Dual-core processors are beginning to look like last year’s handbag.

I can’t help but say I was a little disappointed with the presentation. That wasn’t their fault: they were pressed for time and didn’t get to go into much detail with me. But I was saddened to realize that this had become something like an anti-presentation, a demonstration that left me feeling like I knew less about a technology than when I entered the room, robbing me of the opportunity to pass on to readers why they should care about “Viiv.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but you probably shouldn’t. It feels, to my gut at least, like purely a branding effort, an “Intel Inside” for ‘06 that won’t change your life in the least bit, but will probably look great as a sticker on the front of a new PC.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, TV

April 6, 2006

World gone mad

Dude.

Dude, seriously.

I am completely freaking out about this Mac Boot Camp thing. All new Macs will be able to run Windows XP? Madness! Insanity! What’s next? Yogurt in portable, squeeze-tube form?

Oh my God!

Sure, you could run Windows on a Mac before, but it was through a clunky software program that was so slow you rarely thought about doing things like playing current games or running anything more intense than a Web browser or a Word file through it. Its very name, Virtual PC clued you in: This was fake Windows, faux Windows, Windows of grime behind heavy shutters.

Now Macs with Intel processors will be able to run Windows on a separate partition, natively. This is a bit like finding out your vacuum cleaner can also wash dishes. Sure, they’re close cousins, but still … WHAAAAA?

We’re not just talking about beige or black boxes versus white or silver ones. We’re talking about inflamed passions of PC users and Mac users. About giant corporate accounts. About borders blurred and unspeakables suddenly … er, spoken.

I knew that someday a new desktop PC purchase was in store, but I always figured I’d be replacing my Windows desktop with a higher-end Windows desktop and keeping my Mac laptop as the machine-on-the-side.

Now I think that next computer will be a fast iMac. We’ll create a beautiful partition together and have a Windows OS baby. If the Mac can run Windows with the stability and speed that it runs OS X, we’ll have a real marriage here, one committed to out of love and not just based on convenience and looks.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Applications, Computers

March 23, 2006

Hasta la Vista, Microsoft

I’m actually thrilled that Microsoft has delayed its Vista operating system, the heir to its not-quite-so-broken Windows XP OS.

I have a lot of things to do this year and upgrading my desktop computer in the blind hope that everything will still work when it comes out on the other side of that scary tunnel is not high on the list.

Windows XP was a huge improvement over the buggy Windows ME, and while XP isn’t perfect, it’s a lot less prone to crash and much improved in recognizing devices like digital cameras, external hard drives and, say, iPods. However, as the continual security updates I’m asked to install indicate, it’s a major virus target.

And each upgrade of the OS requires a significant box to run. Most casual PC users will have to upgrade their hard drive space, RAM or other hardware to move up to Vista, if past Windows upgrades are any indication of system requirements. The move from ME to XP, while seemingly incremental, still took most of a day. And sure, it paid off in terms of stability in the long term, those first few days were frustrating. Items (like Windows Explorer and the built-in CD player and Briefcase) disappeared, only to be found later, huddling like scared children in the massive C:/Windows directory. Some devices that worked fine in ME suddenly stopped working in XP. And many older games refused to run after the upgrade.

So you’ll forgive me if I enjoy running my stable Windows XP system a while longer — I’ll probably wait even after the Vista launch to upgrade while all the early wrinkles in the OS are ironed out.

Or better yet, I’ll keep using Mac OS on my laptop and work computer. At least with Apple, I know the leap to a next-gen operating system (evidenced lately by the switch to Intel processors in its newest systems) won’t be full of so many nasty surprises.

Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Computers

November 30, 2005

All the way Viiv?

Intel’s announcement of partners for its new PC entertainment platform (wait, isn’t this about five years too late?) called “Viiv” (pronounced to rhyme with “live,” “jive” and “hive,” since it’s running on a Windows-based platform) will apparently do for home entertainment/PC interoperability what the Centrino chip did for Wi-Fi.

Wait, didn’t you hear? Intel is taking credit for the wireless revolution! Says Kevin Corbett, an Intel vice president in charge of content services, “We basically accelerated the heck out of Wi-Fi (with Centrino). We plan to do the same thing around digital entertainment.”

Huh. And here I thought cheap routers, Internet cafes, Starbucks and non-profit free wireless groups accelerated that growth.

In any case, Intel’s plan sounds an awful lot like what Microsoft is trying to turn its Xbox360 console into. (It didn’t quite work out that way for the original Xbox, but that console wasn’t built for High-Definition and video streaming.)

This AP article emphasizes the relationship Intel has formed with struggling TiVo Inc., but what’s promised doesn’t sound very different from TiVo’s own “TiVo-To-Go” technology or its recent announcements about making TiVo programs available to iPods and Sony PSPs.

Journalists love including anything TiVo-related in stories because it’s one of the few continually evolving technologies that readers seem to really grasp. Yeah, this Intel thing is pretty boring and complex, but check it out… it’ll have TiVo! TiVo, people! You can spend another few hundred or thousand dollars to watch “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” in whole new ways! It’s a great day for technology!

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, TV

September 6, 2005

Looking for questions

Reader Lori writes in:

i am just about to take the Mac plunge, even shopping at the Barton Creek store like you. Tell me: 1. Was it hard to switch to Mac from PC? and 2. Why did you get the iBook and not the G4? How much is the Office Suite after the trial period? Oooops that’s 3 questions. Thanks for your article, Lori

So far, Lori, it’s been pretty easy to switch over. The iBook recognized my home wireless network before it even finished booting up the first time, so getting online was a breeze. The laptop can read CDs and DVDs burned on my desktop computer and most of the applications I’m using (Safari for Web browsing, iChat for instant messaging) are pretty similar or compatible with what I was using before on a PC. (Firefox for browsing, AOL Instant Messenger for chat; iChat works with AIM accounts.)

Word, PowerPoint and other Microsoft files come up just fine with the Mac version of Office (See more on that below).

One of the first things I used the notebook for was to transfer wedding videos from Mini-DV tapes on a digital camcorder to DVD, so burning CDs and DVDs is so far no problem with the iBook’s Superdrive.

Even the game I’m playing a lot of now, “World of Warcraft”, comes on Mac/PC discs, so I’m not even missing a beat on my game playing.

The Mac has a setting to file share with your Windows PC, so I’ve been able to copy over files I need through my network. So far, I haven’t found anything I can’t do on the iBook that I was doing on the Windows PC except for a few game titles that haven’t made it to the Mac world yet.

On No. 2, the iBook is actually a G4 computer. If you meant why did I get it instead of the Toshiba 14-inch, it was mostly because of the price and rebates offered, but also because I was ready to try owning an Apple computer in addition to my Windows desktop.

No. 3: The student/teacher version of Microsoft Office (which I can pretty much guarantee is all you need as far as Office goes) is $99.95 after a $50 rebate. If you have a student or teacher in the family, that’s your best bet. If not, the full version is $399-$499 depending on whether you get the “Standard” or “Professional” edition.

If any other readers have questions about anything tech-related, comment here. I’ll be happy to reply myself or research it if I don’t know the answer to your question.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Shopping, Videogames

September 1, 2005

Winner: iBook

The laptop search is over. The winner is Apple’s iBook G4 14-inch notebook.

It had stiff competition. The Dell m700 was my favorite of the also-rans, but its screen was just a hair too small for me (despite its undeniable brightness and sharpness) and the price it would have cost to outfit it with a DVD burner and other goodies to match the iBook’s feature would have priced it about $500 more.

I also looked at some 14-inch Toshiba models. I was looking for a laptop with a screen smaller than 15 inches, which seems to be the standard now. My last laptop (which is getting some cosmetic surgery before I donate it to my shutterbug father-in-law) had a 15-inch screen and it was so heavy it hurt to carry it around after a while. But the Toshibas I saw would have cost more when factoring in the 3-year warranty plan I added to the iBook and when it came right down to it, I liked the idea of having a Mac in the house to complement the two desktop PCs my wife and I own.

The iBook won not only on price, but also on the extras deal being offered (a free iPod mini as well as $100 off an HP printer, both offers my wife and I took advantage of), and on the amazing amount of software that comes preloaded onto these things right out of the box. OSX: Tiger has proven to be even more amazing than has been written; the Dashboard and Spotlight features are innovations that Microsoft would be smart to steal (er, borrow?) for its upcoming Windows XP successor Vista.

You get a month-long trial of Microsoft Office and the iLife software, including iTunes, iDVD, the built-in mail and address book programs and the great Safari Web browser make having to buy a lot of extra software a moot point. I haven’t found anything software-wise I can’t download for free as shareware that I might need for my new Mac except World of Warcraft,” which runs just fine off the Windows/Mac hybrid discs I already owned.

So, not to sound like those annoying Apple “Switch” ads, but everything about buying my first Mac, from finding info about it online to making the purchase at the Barton Creek Apple Store was so smooth and heartening that I’ve found myself giving my Frankenstein Windows PC in my home office dirty looks from time to time. “Why can’t you have a shiny white exterior?” I’ll ask. “Why can’t you Plug-‘n-Play like you’re supposed to instead of giving me weird USB errors and deleting my files?” My wife hates it when I talk to the computer out loud like that.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Computers, Shopping

July 26, 2005

Hard drive update

Success!

The careful, surgical procedure of replacing my C: drive with a more technologically corpulent 160 gig drive took a little bit (all right — a lot ‘o bit) longer than I expected, but the fact that it works at all is still a wonder to me. Messing with anything that involves the transfer of delicate data so large it can’t be easily backed up always makes me a little wiggy, so I took careful baby steps to ensure that nothing would be damaged.

There is that point in some upgrade processes, though, where you feel things are going awry and you try to work your way back to what you had before, never mind that shiny new piece of hardware, like panicked swimming back to the shore after your toes stop touching the sand below.

At one point, I thought my original C: drive had failed completely, dying just minutes before it was to pass on the discy torch. I cursed my silly hubris and worked in a frenzy just to get my computer back to the state it was before I’d started messing with it. I restarted again and again. I jiggled stuff. I used the “Bang the side of the case” method.

It turned out to be a bad power connection. Swapping some cables around fixed it and then it was back to tempting the fates.

Then there was formatting the new drive and transferring all those megabytes of music, text files, Windows errata… I left it like that overnight, lying in bed and imagining the hum of ones and zeros traveling through one cable, through the motherboard and up through another cable and to the data’s new home.

Then I woke up and the transfer (using the Seagate drive’s handy built-in disc utility, not the more expensive software packages I mentioned yesterday) was complete. I set my BIOS to boot up from the new drive, switched some power cables around inside the case to disable the old C: drive and watched Windows start up smoothly and without incident.

ITunes music still there? Check. Internet still working? Yep. Second hard drive recognized as D: and E:? So far so good.

Then it was time to eat breakfast and head to work, my version of a morning jog around the block completed.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers

July 25, 2005

The rebate shuffle

Let’s all agree: mail-in rebates stink.

I had to put aside the laptop search because there are simply too many choices and I’m not a good impulse buyer. I’ll tell you about my adventure looking at Dell laptops at the mall in a future entry.

But what’s occupying my mind now that I’ve put the notebook search on hold is upgrading my desktop’s hard drive. I’ve got two 40 gig drives in there and space is getting a bit cramped, what with my iTunes taking up a huge chunk of space and “Battlefield 2” and “Half-Life 2” taking up some of the rest.

Swapping hard drives always scares me, but there are plenty of good pieces of software you can use the make the process easier and ship your data over to the new drive. (Most hard drives sold today come with some sort of software package to do just that.) It’s a lot easier if you can have both drives attached at the same time, or transfer to an external drive, then port your data back to the new drive.

I found out my motherboard has Serial ATA capabilities, which is a slightly faster standard of hard drive that involves a much neater, thinner cable, and the ability to combine SATA hard drives for much better performance.

This seems like the answer to my hard-drive dilemma. I’ll just slap the SATA in there and transfer my stuff directly from the IDE C: drive and boom, space dilemma solved. At least that’s the plan.

I found a good Seagate drive offer at Fry’s, but here’s the catch: it’s a great price, but only if you factor in the $60 mail-in rebate being offered. For techno nerds who shop at Fry’s regularly, you know that mail-in rebates are a huge pain, even when you fill them out relgiously and mail them in. You wait. And you wait. And sometimes, you don’t get anything back, as happened to me once with an Xbox joystick. So I did a search on rebates for this hard drive, and the feedback from Internet nerds was not good.

So I called CompUSA. They usually have a generous price-matching policy and I’ve bought things there on a price-match from Fry’s. I asked how they handle rebates on a price match. The helpful lady said that they usually price match the initial price and give you a CompUSA gift card for the rebate amount.

Your choices: Wait endlessly for a mail-in rebate that you may or may not ever get, or get an instant gift card that you can use on the spot for something else.

I think CompUSA wins this round.

(Edited to add: maybe CompUSA is better off avoiding mail-in rebates altogether.)

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Shopping

June 21, 2005

Curse of the borrowed laptop

I’m in the market for a new laptop; I’d been borrowing one for a while, a very nice one, but the time to return it has come leaving me with The Blue Monster.

The Blue Monster, my aging Toshiba laptop, was quite the sporty notebook in its heyday. It had a shiny blue top not unlike a snazzy sports car and it had a decent graphics card that allowed me to play “Worms World Party” to my heart’s content.

By today’s standard, though, the Toshiba is huge, heavy and runs way too hot and far too slow. At some point, the “5” key came off and I have to keep popping it back in place when I open the laptop. The little grooves to keep it in there got bent beyond help and I’m afraid to use glue on it, so I have a key that slips off all the time and always ends up on the floor when I move the computer around.

Just before I switched over to the loaner laptop, the Toshiba made a terrible cracking sound when I opened it and now if you open the screen past an acute angle and toward an obtuse, the mechanism loses its grip and the screen falls back limply. If you’re Tom Cruise hanging from wires in “Mission: Impossible” (watch out for water guns, Tom), this might work for typing. Otherwise, it’s sad.

I’ve always been a “Better, faster, more powerful!” buyer of computer products, but a few months of toting a lighter, cooler notebook has converted me. No longer will I look for the brawniest, speediest notebook. Unless you play lots of video games on your laptop (and I count the number of times I’ve considered playing a game like “Half-Life 2” on a portable computer on one hand), why not get something that doesn’t put a cramp in your shoulder when you carry it to and from home?

I’m even looking at 12-inch screens. Again, I figured out that I don’t need a huge, 17-inch widescreen display on a laptop. My eyes are fine. I don’t need everyone on the airplane to watch the DVD along with me when I travel.

Although I’ve been an AMD devotee for years, I’ve gotta say those Pentium-M processors sure do run nice. They start up quick, run cool and speedy, and have great battery life. When you’re on a flight to New York and you run out of DVDs to watch before you run out of battery, you know you’ve got a winner on your hands (and in your lap).

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Computers

May 25, 2005

Great feats of incremental upgrading

I never understood why people whittle; taking a knife to a piece of wood for hours and hours to make a duck’s bill or a scary wood figurine.

It just seemed like an inordinate amount of work for very little gain to me. Unless, of course, you’re in prison making a shiv. Then, I could see the utility.

Of course, the whittling people could find many reasons to think I get even fewer results from pursuits I spend a good deal of time on. Sure, video games. I’ll give you that one.

On Saturday, I even freaked myself out with the number of hours I spent doing something that was geeky even for my house. (You get a +3 savings throw against being called a geek in my home; +4 if it involves karaoke or “Dance Dance Revolution”) I spent the better part of a morning using my PC to interface with the two TiVo boxes in my house to download software updates in lieu of doing it over a phone line (which I don’t have; we’re all cell phone at home).

I first researched this a year ago before I made the DirectTV-TiVo jump; the TiVo box needs to make phone calls to order Pay-Per-View or to get software updates. Without a phone line, I didn’t know if I’d be able to use their TiVo box.

It turns out you can, with some finagling. First, you need a serial-to-stereo null modem cable, a wire you’ll only ever use for this specific purpose, and that you’ll need to get online or from a wiring savant at Radio Shack. Then you mess around in Windows XP for hours trying to get your TiVo to talk to and through your computer out onto the Internet, bypassing firewalls and networking settings. Then it dials out online and spends 45 minutes “Negotiating” the connection (especially if it’s been a year since you did your last update, which is the case with me).

If your’e lucky, it then downloads sweet, sweet update data. Then the TiVo restarts, installs its new updates from a separate disk partition and BOOM! You have a very, very small change in features. In this case, my standard TiVo box can now do folders (it can group, say, 21 episodes of “Smallville” into a single folder instead of showing them all in the Now Playing menu) and the menus themselves are a little faster.

The upgrade to my other box, an HDTiVo was even less noticeable; I’m not even sure what issues the latest updates addressed, but I’ve yet to see any major difference in using it.

What humbles me, though, is that my little mid-morning of moving set-top boxes around the house and connecting a cable to a computer are small potatoes in the world of Extreme TiVo Upgrading. People are swapping their hard drives for ones with hacked extra goodies, adding high-speed network connections where there aren’t any and adding enough store capacity to keep yourselves in “Simpsons” reruns for the rest of your life.

One guy, who doesn’t even consider himself a hard-core TiVo hacker, has got his TiVo networked and continuously online to display all the shows on his machine and even the ones he’s got scheduled to record.

So my little feat of upgrading magic, which manages to stump quite a few TiVo fans, is just a little bit of tech whittling; a lot of movement for just a few shavings off the home geek block of wood.

I’m sure the guy in prison carving the shiv is making much better use of his time.

Permalink | | Categories: Computers, TV

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