How have you'all been? I was away visiting family and friends, came back and am picking up the pieces again. Whilst adding an AUD 5 dollar fan to a friend's Pentium 4 machine, I started reading my first Green Guide for the year. Charles was writing about the notebook market - something I had been mulling over.
I've just picked up an Acer 1810TZ (all those model numbers are piling up in a blur). It's an SU 4100 energy saver dual core light weight machine with longish running time on batteries. But there is so much overlap in price, machine size, generation of cpu, corporate model vs consumer model line, if you haven't established a firm bead on what you want, it's like being a child in a candy store - everything looks yummy and sweet.
A recent broadcast email by a notebook retailer notes that some models are indeed 50% off RRP given that they are Vista/XP without free upgrade to Windows 7. Of course, they may not feature the latest generation of CPU chip but they're competent machines nevertheless since mobile CPU chip trends are towards energy vs performance tradeoffs, not sheer speed championship.
Some month ago, one of the staff in a retail chain noted that notebooks were boring as anything, preferring to discuss digital cameras. Not any more. Not only are there different technical specs and CPUs in different machines, the machines themselves are cosmetically diversifying.
With the Apple iPad entering the fray and possibly Microsoft tablets in three different sizes coming soon after, this should be an interesting year.
I’ve been a little pre-occupied the past few days – and promised myself an end of year hello to our our readers. I am sure Charles and Stephen are ensconced in their respective chairs or even beds and convey similar greetings of cheer. I’m listening to the delectable Eliane Ellias as I write this.
Commoncraft is a quite a famous resource for concise, direct and simplified training videos. For example, here is one on Cloud Computing.
In training and education, I find it’s more effective to strip away distractions from side issues and focus on the main topic of delivery. All well and good in the training environment. However, re-purposing such videos to other tasks like reconciling customer expectations, ah, it’s NOT such a good idea. Viewers see it as a negative. As a dumbing down. Guess Westpac has to live and learn.
Along in our way to re-discovering our PCs with Windows 7, we're having some good times, some bad times.
Getting over the Bad Times (I)
Whether it's another version of Windows or a completely different operating system, one's preparedness to embrace the new comes easier if one does not have lots of baggage. What sort of baggage?
Email
Many veteran Windows XP users started their personal involvement with the internet using desktop email and POP3 accounts. These were all the rage, it was sooo cool to be "on email". Evnetually, the Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail web clients came into being - that liberated people from worrying about their local email storage. And then IMAP4 for home use and Outlook - Exchange Server for corporates. All these subsequent incarnations of mailstores freed us from worrying about our local mailstores. But, if you're stuck on email desktop clients like Thunderbird, connected to POP3 servers and local address books, aah, you've got to be careful with your baggage.
As long as your current machine was healthy and you ran your email without issues, you were fine. But when you move to a different machine, a new one, or a new install of Windows, by gee, where's your mailstore? Are you really sure you've got the right files, backed up? Really. Well the crunch comes when you try to re-constitute said dessicated mailstore back to your new platform. Aren't you itching for the "it went alright experience?" Hmmm
We seem to be getting some excitement in our forum about Windows 7. I guess this is reflective of interest in the greater PC community. So, how’s it going? Decided on getting it yet? Found a way to buy it? Thinking of installing it? Let’s see….
“Were not about big events any more. We are about listening to what users have got to say," said James DeBragga, general manager of Windows consumer product marketing.
It so reminded me of Siegfried and Shtarker as they bumbled along with Max(well) Smart and Agent 99. The media keeps repeating how Microsoft wants to distance itself from Vista – maybe that’s the reason behind the different style of Microsoft marketing. Or maybe Ballmer is playing low key… No, that can’t be it.
Microsoft is now brewing an advertising storm for Windows 7 retail release. The Kylie video is way too sugary sweet – she was nice when she was “making better”
It all started with me getting dissatisfied with my Hewlett Packard Officejet printers. I’ve had a 5510 for a long while, it Faxes, Scans, Prints. I also have a newer Officejet C4280 in the family room. Both all-in-one printers work fine hardware wise. It’s just that the replacement HP ink cartridges cost a bit. Yes, I hear a chorus of silent “ayes” from you as well, regardless of any brand you own.
It has often been said that inkjet printers and the ink cartridge replacements are like razors and razorblades – brands are quite happy to sell you a cheap razor, they make money on the blades. Now, some time ago, Kodak decided to challenge that idea. They had escapee scientists from Hewlett Packard, lead by an escapee head honcho, also from Hech Pee. Kodak derived most of their income from selling photographic film and paper – but the film business went north (well they did close that factory in Coburg) so the Kodak teams were keen to make up for lost income. When Kodak first launched their own inkjet printer line with their own special recipe pigment ink (as opposed to dye based ink), their printers cost a bit even though their ink was typically half the price of competitors’ product. Here was an interesting phenomena, how were they going to grab market share where the market appeared to dictate that the up front printer cost should be cheap? HP sure weren’t taking it lying down.
What with the insidious game that technology tends to play with one’s mind – first it makes itself indispensable then it spasmodically and unpredictably withdraws its services – Bleeding Edge is prepared to admit that we may have been ever so slightly paranoid about the iiNet Belkin F1PI242ENau voice modem/router which has been keeping the Bleeding Edge cave in touch with the outside world.
After a week or so of having to reboot the thing once or twice a day, and a polite, but not terribly productive conversation with iiNet’s tech support department which elicited the news that we were suffering from a “port error” – a vague diagnosis which could mean anything from interference on the phone line to a faulty line filter or possibly a challenging astrological transit – Bleeding Edge opted to replace the modem.
It’s not the first time we’ve tangled with the Belkin modem, and we weren’t prepared to mess with firmware or engage in another one of those isolation tests in which you uncouple every telephone device and hope that whatever transitory fault you’re suffering from manifests itself before the people who are no doubt trying urgently to ring you start assuming you’ve left town, or been arrested ... pardon us for a minute while we pop another one of those anti-paranoia pills.
As it happened, we’d already made the same decision in relation to the small business system we administer. While we haven’t had any problems with the Billion BiPAC 7404 modem/router, we had become increasingly worried by the fact that it lacked an essential feature for any small business: automatic fail-over capability.
Internet connectivity has become as critical to small – even very small – businesses as it is for large corporations. The need for reliable access to email and the Web and the increasing number of useful cloud computing applications is obvious, but with an increasing number of home offices and small businesses also relying on VoIP (Voice over IP) to provide cheap, reliable telephone calls, losing Internet access can be a disaster.
Fortunately, it’s possible these days to build voice and data connections that are even more reliable than conventional phone/data services, by adding a low-cost ADSL, cable, or wireless service to the primary Internet feed. In the past, these fail-over systems were a big-budget luxury. They’re now within the reach even of SOHO operators like Bleeding Edge.
We were having giggles on the weekend with the new viral ad, Microsoft 2010: The Movie. The lead actor’s almost got a Bruno dead-pan delivery, staying in character. When he gave the Vulcan salute for Word, our guffaws were audible in the extreme.
So, when Long Zheng facebooked the link to short video clips of the individual Office 2010 applications, it was a little bit of down to earth come-down to see a Bernie Fraser-like presentation explaining Office Webapps (as delivered by Sharepoint 2010 server).
Now that Sinofsky’s helming Windows 7, I guess his old gang’s concentrating on implementing incremental improvements after the major update of Office 2007.
Danielle on: Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year
Lance Daly - Holt on: Getting to know the iPhone
Mio Navman Spirit S500THF on: GPS price war ... and piracy
Sarah on: iPhone: learning to live with Telstra
John on: How’s your Windows 7 coming along?
Ron on: How’s your Windows 7 coming along?