Awhile ago I wrote an article that covered various ways you can monitor the remaining battery life of your laptop, but I was starting to wonder what kind of apps developers had come up with for Windows 7 users. Interestingly enough on that same article a commenter, Chris, talked about a nice free app called BatteryBar that did everything I was looking for.
A lot of people have been anxiously waiting to see what kind of electronics deals stores were going to offer this year, and one of the most sought-after ads has finally been posted to the Internet. That's right, the Best Buy Black Friday 2008 ad is available (click here to compare it with Best Buy's Black Friday ad from 2007).
Computers are continuing to get more and more powerful, but a lot of people don't need that extra computing power that the advances in technology bring to the table. At home most people only do things like check their email, chat with friends, and other basic tasks. Dell has recognized this, and the new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 will fill that need.
Over a month ago NVIDIA came forward and announced that they had shipped some faulty graphical processing units (GPU's), and that it would cost them between $150-$200 million to cover the damages done. They didn't announce specifically what cards were affected, but the cause of the issue was a weak die/packaging material that could fail because of temperature fluctuations.
NVIDIA announced today that they will be taking a $150 million hit in order to repair faulty graphical processing units (GPU) and media communications processors (MCP).
Dell has a launched a new line of laptop computers dubbed Dell Studio that has raised a few eyebrows. The laptops ship with Windows Vista which isn't surprising, but the thing that made Gizmodo do a double-take was the Mac-like dock that appeared on the desktop.
It seems like just yesterday when the One Laptop Per Child program was announced, but it's already been three years. At this point the organization, led by Nicholas Negroponte, is ready to introduce the design of the next generation of affordable laptops so that children around the world will have new opportunities to learn.
Did ya miss us? We've been out of town since last Thursday, and since then there were some pretty big announcements that we wanted to be sure to cover. It appears as though the last few days before last weekend was the prime time for acquisitions. ;)
This morning I woke up and saw that we had received a tip from someone pointing to this article by the Inquirer. It caught my attention because it was talking about a new set of upgrades to Apple's MacBook Pro line of computers. As the day went on we received a few more tips on this, and a few of them linked to some gadget websites who had also written about it.
Ever wonder who makes the most "reliable" laptop? Before we even dive into which computer company is the most reliable, maybe we should determine what reliable is.
We knew it would come sooner or later, and from the looks of it widespread 64-bit computing might be on the horizon. Just yesterday we posted the results of our poll asking whether you're running a 64-bit operating system, and only about a quarter of you are. That could be changing as more PC manufacturers start to push 64-bit machines.
For Today's MyFive, we're taking a look at the computers that we (meaning Ryan and I) have owned over the last several years. We're also interested in hearing what computers you've owned over time and which you have found to be the best.
It's coming up on one year since Dell started selling computers that are preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. Towards the end of last year some stats started rolling in saying that Dell had only sold 40,000 Ubuntu machines, which equates to about 220 units per day. That's not too shabby considering the only form of advertising for the Dell Ubuntu machines is by word of mouth.
It wasn't that long ago that it was next to impossible to pickup a new laptop for under $1000, but now you can regularly find them for just a few hundred dollars. And there's no arguing that people are becoming more and more connected thanks to the Internet access proved by cellphone networks. When you combine the falling prices of laptops with the increased connectivity what do you get?
We've received several emails in the last hour or so from our readers regarding Sony offering the "Fresh Start" bloatware-free option on one of their high-end laptops. The emails were not complaining about the $50 fee being charged to get a PC without the crapware, but instead they were all letting us know that Sony has changed their mind and will not be charging for it.
At the start of my last semester of school, I was taken back when I read the syllabus for one of my classes.
If you were to take your computer to a repair shop and they ended up losing it, what would you say is fair compensation? I'd say at least the amount it cost to purchase the laptop in the first place, and then maybe a little extra to cover the hassle and time it took to get it replaced would be fair.
Dell has announced that they are now shipping Ubuntu computers running the latest 7.10 release. On the Dell blog they said that it took so long because they wanted to do extensive testing first, but I would say that it was a rather fast turnaround considering that it was such a big upgrade.
Vista's Flip3D is one of the most notable features, and something you frequently see in demonstrations of the operating system. It presents a unique way to flip between your open applications, and for the longest time I didn't think it would ever make me more productive.
Microsoft is not going to stand on the sidelines when it comes to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. They have given 40 engineers the daunting task of getting Windows XP running on the OLPC (a.k.a. XO project), which is equipped with a 433MHz processor, 256MB or RAM, and a 1GB flash drive.
