Archive for August, 2007
Don’t rush to buy a laptop
Computer buyers always face the frustrating fact that, whatever they buy, something better will soon be available for the same price or even less. So generally you just have to resign yourself and buy a new system whenever it seems like the old one is no longer adequate. Sometimes, however, there is enough change in [...]
Beware of computer sales clerks selling recovery disks
A recovery disk for your computer may be a good thing to have but you don’t need to pay $30 for one. That’s what Computerworld reports some big stores are charging for their own versions of recovery disks that they are pushing when you buy a computer. Actually, you can make your own with the [...]
New version of Nero
I don’t use it but Nero software is one of the most popular for burning and editing digital media. A new version has been announced for October release. AppScout describes it:
Nero announced today the upcoming release of Nero 8, the latest version of the German software company’s digital media suite. The media editing, burning, [...]
Overcompression ruins music
Music keeps getting louder and louder and an article at IEEE Spectrum explains why this is not a good thing. While getting louder, music recordings have been losing dynamic range. The article illustrates with some graphs of waveforms and says:
When the dynamic range of a song is heavily reduced for the sake of achieving loudness, [...]
Vista service pack beta coming soon
Mary Jo Foley gives some details for Vista Service Pack 1:
After almost a year of hemming and hawing over how and when to acknowledge publicly its plans for Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, Microsoft finally released on August 29 its officially-approved schedule and feature set for the awaited update.
Vista SP1 will go to about [...]
Spam that might kill you
The readers of this blog are probably too savvy to fall for products that are pushed in spam mail but you may know somebody who is not. Spam products may be more than hazardous to your pocketbook; they can be downright dangerous when they are medications. As you must have noticed, one of the main [...]
More fallout from WGA failure
Joining the unfavorable commentators on the much disliked “Windows Genuine Advantage” is Scot Finnie at Computerworld. He writes:
Fighting software pirates is an acceptable goal for software development companies. Eroding the user experience for paying customers in the process … that doesn’t work for me. Not everyone can vote by switching. I could, so I did.
But [...]
eSata drives
Computer technology marches ever onward. Maybe you are just getting used to connecting external drives via USB 2.0 but you are already behind the times. The new way for connecting external hard drives is eSata. Many motherboards now have this available and external drives with eSata connections are readily available. ExtremeTech has compared the performance [...]
Are more cores in your CPU really better?
The multi-core CPU is the new thing. Dual-core is everywhere and quad-core is appearing on more and more systems. And of course, there seem to be daily announcements of future 64-core chips and more. The question is, does the average PC user really get anything from all these cores? I have two dual-core machines and [...]
Acer buys Gateway
Computerworld reports:
Acer Inc. plans to acquire Gateway Inc. in a deal worth $710 million that Acer says will make it the world’s third-largest PC vendor.
Under terms of the agreement announced Monday, Acer will purchase all of Gateway’s outstanding shares for $1.90 per share. The deal has already been approved by the boards of directors [...]
Microsoft WGA bombs again
The Windows anti-piracy measures struck the innocent again. A large number of legitimate Windows XP and Vista users were accused of piracy yesterday and today. The Vista victims weren’t just accused; their systems were partially disabled. Greg Keizer reports:
Microsoft Corp. has blamed an unspecified server problem for a 16-hour stretch during which paying users of [...]