Vista is the most radical revamping of Windows since 1995. But along with all the fantastic improvements, there are a couple of things that drive you up the wall. Read More»
Techlogg is correct in their assertion that many PCs are not running at their full capacity, and it is not necessary to spend money to get a 20% increase when you could implement 20 tweaks that could potentially give a 1% increase each.
Here is the list of tweaks they have come up with Read More»
Reg Reader Workshop It’s amazing how many people who have Microsoft Windows everywhere look flummoxed when asked whether Windows is their “standard” for desktop computing. The reason they are thrown by this question is typically because they haven’t thought about it that way before.
In all likelihood, they never actually made a proactive decision to select Windows, in the sense of looking at alternatives and making a conscious objective choice. So how did they end up with it? It’s an example of a phenomenon that we come across time and time again when looking at how people have arrived at the IT landscapes they have today, and if you explore it a little further, it becomes clear the key to a lot of Microsoft’s success is establishing as many of its products as possible as the “default” when it comes to decision making. Read More»
When large businesses buy new PCs, they often wipe the hard drives clean and install a fresh copy of Windows, along with the other software they want workers to have. Some consumers, frustrated with all of the trial software, desktop icons and other stuff that comes loaded on their machines, are doing the same thing.
However, what works for businesses isn’t always so easy for individuals. Many computers don’t actually come with a clean copy of the operating system. Instead, many ship with a “recovery partition” or a recovery disc that restores the system back to the way it shipped–with all that extra software. Read More»
Amid significant customer demand, the computer maker said on Thursday that it has returned to offering the older Windows version as an option on some of its consumer PCs. Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft’s mainstream launch of the operating system in January.
However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas. “We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings,” Dell said on its Ideas in Action page. Users get to vote on various suggestions, and the notion of bringing back XP got 10,000 “points,” making it among the most popular requests but well below top picks such as adding Linux or OpenOffice.org to its PCs. Read More»
Computer makers have been told they’ll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems. By early 2008, Microsoft’s contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. “The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January,” said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. “At that point, they’ll have no choice.”
Despite Microsoft’s relentless promotion of Vista, manufacturers are still seeing plenty of demand from customers for systems preloaded with XP, especially in the finicky SOHO market. Read More»
Toshiba said Wednesday that shipments of its HD-A20 HD DVD player had begun. The player is the first of the high-definition players, either Blu-ray or HD DVD, to offer 1080p resolution at a sub-$500 price point. The player will include an HDMI interface which Toshiba says could upconvert standard DVDs to near-HD quality, as well as standard interactivity and networking capabilities.
Over 900,000 HD DVD discs have been sold to date, Toshiba says, and 70 new titles are scheduled to be released between now and July. Read More»
Intel is planning to announce a new set of processors for the next generation of Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) on the 18th of April. Can a new CPU and some new design approaches unfold the sales disappointment that has been the UMPC/Origami initiative?
According to a leaked PowerPoint presentation available from HKEPC, the new UMPC reference design is code-named “McCaslin” and will feature a new CPU dubbed “Stealey.” The CPU is based on a Dothan design using a 90nm fabrication process running at 600 or 800MHz with a 400MHz front-side bus and 512KB of onboard level 2 cache. Read More»
The best gift PC is a computer that’s as close to new as possible, in terms of both hardware and software. It represents the most work for you, but the reward is a computer that will be as trouble-free as possible, and no one can pull your personal data off the hard drive, because you’ll be replacing it.
Windows works best when it is freshly installed from scratch on a clean hard drive, so if you’re looking to make the computer as trouble-free as possible, reformatting the hard drive and installing Windows from the Windows installation discs is one way to go. But prices of new hard drives have come way down—you can get a 40GB drive for under $60 and a 200GB drive for less than $100—so consider replacing the drive. Read More»
You can add a lot of value to an old computer by installing and configuring software that its new owner could really use, and by resetting the operating system to as close to factory fresh as possible.
No one should be without at least a word processor (if not a whole office suite) and an antivirus program. If you’re removing such software for licensing reasons, at least install some free alternatives. OpenOffice ( www.openoffice.org ) is an excellent substitute for Microsoft Office (and Microsoft Word). Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition ( http://free.grisoft.com ) is a fine alternative to any commercial antivirus product, and your beneficiary won’t have to pay for annual virus-definition subscriptions. Read More»
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