August 19, 2010
NOTEBOOK SHOPPING, WITH BAMBOO
Here’s a nice notebook at a nice price: the Asus U43Jc, a 14” laptop that can be purchased from Amazon until September 5 for $999 – with a $150 Amazon gift card thrown in, effectively bringing the price down to $849. That’s quite good for a notebook with these specs!
The notebook features a cover and palm rest made out of bamboo, making the case look very sleek in a furniture sort of way. (It also lets Asus tout how environmentally swell it is.) It’s got great parts inside: an Intel Core i5 processor; 4Gb of RAM; […] continued
July 5, 2010
NEW NOTEBOOKS
It is impossible to keep up with the flood of new devices onto the market. Technology is appearing everywhere, in every form factor, faster than anyone can hope to keep up with it. The most you can hope to do is be generally aware of how many choices are out there, so you don’t settle for something in the belief that you can’t get what you want.
Take a look at this article, which covers 17 new notebooks. The manufacturers are familiar but I’ve never heard of most of the specific models – and I read about new […] continued
May 28, 2010
WHERE ARE THE SOLID STATE DRIVES?
Almost a year ago I predicted that solid state hard drives would be mainstream devices once manufacturers finished ironing out some technical kinks and the price started to come down. What happened?
Solid state drives (SSDs) are the devices that work like hard drives but don’t have any moving parts. Intel has fixed the technical issues and the results are dazzling, especially with Windows 7, which is optimized for SSDs. By all accounts, the drives are worlds faster than any conventional hard drive, with reports of Windows 7 installations in seven minutes, […] continued
May 17, 2010
GETTING STARTED WITH WINDOWS 7
A lot of people are buying Windows 7 computers! Here’s a roundup of articles about new features to discover and some of the ways that Windows 7 is different than Windows XP. Click on the pictures or the titles for the original articles with all the details to help you get started!
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WINDOWS 7 TASKBAR |
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April 29, 2010
SMARTPHONES AND MONEY
HP is buying Palm. Synergy! Patents! Engineers! Vision! Innovation! New smartphones computers tablets slates operating systems! Whee!
I was idly reading stories about the deal when a sentence jumped out at me from the New York Times this morning. If this is true, it explains everything you need to know about what is happening around you and where the world is going.
“Analysts have forecast that sales of smartphones, currently about equal to the annual sales of laptops, will surpass total PC sales by 2012.”
Got that? Let me repeat it, in boldface:
- Sales of
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March 15, 2010
MORE DELL COMPUTERS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
I’m not going to mention every product announcement that comes along, but Dell has introduced some small business laptops and desktops that look particularly appealing.
The Dell Vostro 3000 line of laptops come in a variety of screen sizes and weights (13”, 14”, 15” and 17”), with the latest Intel processors, extensive battery life, high quality graphics, built-in DVD drives and webcams, and all the usual accessories. Prices change quickly depending on what boxes are checked for processor, memory, video, software, but these appear to be comparable to all the other laptops on the market now.
Here’s […] continued
March 5, 2010
DELL LATITUDE 13
Dell has added the Latitude 13 to its business notebook lineup, with a design that is identical in virtually every respect to the Vostro V13 introduced in December. The “Latitude” brand name is used by Dell to indicate that the notebook includes features for management by large companies. Here’s the description of the added features distinguishing the Latitude 13 from the Vostro V13:
The Latitude 13 adds features such as remote manageability and desktop virtualization through certification from Citrix and VMware to deliver a full PC experience to users in non-standard computing environments such as
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February 22, 2010
HANDS-ON WITH THE DELL VOSTRO V13
Once my wife saw my Dell Vostro V13, it didn’t take long before we had two Vostro V13s.
The Vostro V13 is an ultrathin notebook with a 13” 1366×768 nonglare screen and a full-size keyboard. It’s two-thirds of an inch tall with the lid closed and weighs just 3.5 pounds. The aluminum body oozes style and elegance, with curved edges and a polished exterior that is surprisingly solid for such a light machine. It has the same appeal as some very expensive ultrathin laptops, the Dell Adamo and Sony Vaio Z, but sells for far […] continued
February 4, 2010
WHO WILL BUY THE APPLE iPAD?
Who’s going to buy an Apple iPad?
Well, not you or me, anyway – not this version, not at $600-800.
It’s not going to revolutionize anything, it’s not going to replace netbooks, but it will find large and devoted audiences, particularly after the price drops and some features get added. It’s easy to imagine version 2 or 3 with the built-in camera that ought to have been there all along, and with the GPS receiver that is driving the most interesting uses of the iPhone. More importantly, a couple of years from now the low-end version of the […] continued
December 24, 2009
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BRUCEB CONSULTING
Happy holidays from all of us at Bruceb Consulting! All my best wishes for an abundance of happiness and good cheer!
I’m looking forward to working with you in 2010 in a rapidly changing world of technology. These are the trends that will shape next year for small businesses:
- WINDOWS 7 Many of you will be getting new computers to replace the aging, slow Windows XP systems under your desk, and finding that Windows 7 is quite delightful for work and play.
- MULTIPLE COMPUTERS You’ll be more likely to have several computers as prices drop
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