bruceb news

LogMeIn has moved far ahead of its competitors for working with computers remotely. It introduced major changes to its product lineup a couple of days before Christmas – not a good time to get much attention but an appropriate time to deliver lovely presents, since the changes include new features that will be useful for many of you.

Let’s start with the basics.

COMPUTERS

LogMeIn provides a small bit of software that installs on your computer at home or the office. It’s tied to a LogMeIn account – an email address and a password. The basic program is free for connecting from one computer to another computer. […] continued

Attentive readers will recall that a new platform for thin and light notebooks was announced by Intel a couple of months ago. The first Ultrabook notebooks are hitting the market in November. I haven’t seen these in person but they strike me as being good representatives of what everyone should be looking for in a notebook these days.

The Asus ZenBook UX31 is now available and getting rave reviews for its solid construction and stunning performance, at a starting price of $1,099. It’s a 13.3” notebook built on Intel’s new Ultrabook chipset, vanishingly thin and weighing less than three pounds. […] continued

Apple’s brilliant success since Steve Jobs returned in 1997 has made it the largest company in the world by almost any measure, with a market capitalization that exceeds Microsoft and Intel combined. iPhones define the smartphone market, even if they do not completely dominate it now that Android has taken the lead in market share. iPads, however, so completely dominate the tablet market that Amazon opted not to directly compete but instead to seek a different niche that will leave Apple as the undisputed king of the 10′” tablets – for now, at least.

Apple’s lineup of Mac computers and its releases of OS X upgrades are watched by bloggers and the media almost as lovingly as its mobile devices. […] continued

By the end of the year there will finally be a dozen or more reasonably-priced ultrathin, ultralight notebooks on the market, mostly priced under a thousand dollars.

Almost three years ago Apple introduced the MacBook Air, an ultrathin 13” notebook. Even with an example in front of them suitable for copying, PC manufacturers didn’t have any reasonably powered thin and light notebooks on the market until more than a year later, and even then there were only a few niche products – the Dell Adamo and one or two others. It wasn’t until Dell introduced the Vostro V13 that it was possible to get a satisfying ultrathin notebook that wouldn’t break the bank. […] continued

Dell has upgraded the specs for the new Vostro V131, the latest version of its standout ultra-thin, ultra-light 13.3” notebook.

The styling is very similar to the Vostro V130 (and the beloved previous generation Vostro V13), but under the hood a number of things have been bumped up – Sandy Bridge Core i3 and i5 processors, USB 3.0 ports, and improved battery life. Getting the specs you want will probably take the price up to about $800, but that’s pretty reasonable for such a lovely bit of hardware. (If you want a 15” screen, don’t overlook the new Dell XPS 15z, which offers the same sleek lightweight styling.)

Why doesn’t everyone get one of these? […] continued

The little device in the picture – about the size of a deck of playing cards, less than half as thick – is an Intel 160Gb solid state hard drive. It has given me a more significant speed boost for my computer than any other single device that I can recall – ever, in all my years of computing. It’s been a more noticeable improvement than years past when I have swapped a motherboard to get Intel’s latest and greatest processor, or added more memory to a system that needed it.

Solid state hard drives are starting to be sold preinstalled in new computers – still rare but likely to be much more visible in the next few months. […] continued

Dell introduced the XPS 15z this week, a new ultrathin 15” notebook for $999. It might be exactly right for many people – a bigger screen than the 13” Vostro V130 and a much more reasonable price tag than the gorgeous Samsung Series 9.

Apple has once again provided the inspiration for the design. Samsung more or less copied the MacBook Air for its ultrathin Series 9, and Dell has copied the MacBook Pro in almost every detail. Engadget has an amusing gallery of photos from all angles of a MacBook Pro and an XPS 15z next to each other and it’s obvious that the new Dell laptop is an homage to the original. […] continued

Previously:
Whining About Wireless

I’ll tell you a story about my own experience. You won’t learn anything and there’s not a happy ending, but perhaps it will give you a little perspective on why I’m not urging you to ditch your wires and set up wireless everywhere.

I’ve had a wireless access point at the global headquarters of Bruceb Consulting for a long time. When my wife and I got our matching Vostro V13 laptops last year, we started to rely on wireless more than ever, so maybe we just began to notice a problem that had existed for a long time. […] continued

When you have a choice between running a cable and relying on a wireless connection, you simply must not consider them to be equal choices. The reliability of a wired connection seriously tilts the scales. I have told my clients for years that the equation is simple: people with wireless connections call me for help; people with wires don’t.

These two things are both true:

• Wireless Internet connections, whether 802.11 or cell carrier networks, are wonderful and useful and fantastic and science fictional.
• Wireless Internet connections can be an incredible pain in the butt.

Can you tell I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of wireless failures in the last few weeks? […] continued

The Samsung Series 9 combines elegant design, advanced engineering, and uncompromising peformance in a stylish ultralight, ultraslim premium laptop. It stands alone at the top of the Windows laptop market. Samsung might not be the first name you think of in notebook manufacturers but the company poured money into developing the Series 9 in the hope that it would draw attention to the entire Samsung notebook line.

That thin sliver in the picture above is less than two-thirds of an inch thick and weighs just over two and a half pounds. Inside is an ultra-bright 13.3 inch display, a full-size backlit keyboard, and a more responsive computing experience than any other computer I own, thanks to the latest Intel Core i5 “Sandy Bridge” processor technology and a blindingly fast solid state hard drive. […] continued