Opera 12 is available -- get it now!Opera has gotten into the "quick release cycle" game, and the results are that the browser is being released sooner than it should be. It won't deter me from using it, as I am a long time user, and the only serious competitor, Iron, still doesn't have the things that Opera does {probably never will]. Unite is going away, and for many will be missed - too bad that the Opera devs can't make it an add-on, with a separate release cycle, so that it could continue. Widgets are no big deal, as extensions essentially duplicate their behavior [note I said essentially, not exactly]. Voice is something I never used, but always thought was nice, especially since it pre-dated the other things being dropped, and was a major difference between Opera and the rest for many moons.
I'm certain that Opera devs are frustrated, as they see the things they've come up with get nicked, time after time, and then claimed by others as "original", while the Opera share of the market stays about the same. They need to console themselves with the fact that not everyone has the patience or intelligence to realize what it is they are missing. [Not everyone likes diamonds, champagne, or Lamborghinis either]
Sunday, June 17, 2012
The Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook review: Retail $1,399.99
Latest from Acer is that they will be releasing an Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook. Retail price would be $1,399.99.Read on for consumer reviews:
Review 1:
This is really expensive for a laptop. Especially with a 1366 x 768 resolution. The emphasis is so much on Thunderbolt and the "Magic Flip" that basic information like the quantity of RAM, details of I/O ports was not supplied.
In my opinion, its slimness is fake. When you need the I/O ports, you still must open that trap door, which them make the laptop thicker. Its like a fat person, sucking in the stomach and claiming having slim abs.
Review 2:
Why on planet earth would anyone spend over $1000 and NOT buy a MBA?
This is like the house walmart brand of computers. And that trap door is ugly and adds bulk to the thickness... These apple-copycats just dont get it.
What makes them think they can enjoy margins comparable to Apple when they offer NOTHING that Apple does? Apple just does it better. This whole "ultrabook" campaign is just a sham... Its a shell to pretend its a different kind of computer but it basically says "hey Apple did it and its succesful and since we cannot find success we will just copy Apple"...
Review 3:
The ultrabooks aren't a sham. Some people don't like Apple and still want a think light weight laptop that runs Windows. What's wrong with that. I just bought the MBA because Apple stopped developing XCode on Snow Leopard. Everyone I've showed it to wants to buy a PC based version of the same thing. Of course most of them are $200 cheaper than the Apple.
Review 1:
This is really expensive for a laptop. Especially with a 1366 x 768 resolution. The emphasis is so much on Thunderbolt and the "Magic Flip" that basic information like the quantity of RAM, details of I/O ports was not supplied.
In my opinion, its slimness is fake. When you need the I/O ports, you still must open that trap door, which them make the laptop thicker. Its like a fat person, sucking in the stomach and claiming having slim abs.
Review 2:
Why on planet earth would anyone spend over $1000 and NOT buy a MBA?
This is like the house walmart brand of computers. And that trap door is ugly and adds bulk to the thickness... These apple-copycats just dont get it.
What makes them think they can enjoy margins comparable to Apple when they offer NOTHING that Apple does? Apple just does it better. This whole "ultrabook" campaign is just a sham... Its a shell to pretend its a different kind of computer but it basically says "hey Apple did it and its succesful and since we cannot find success we will just copy Apple"...
Review 3:
The ultrabooks aren't a sham. Some people don't like Apple and still want a think light weight laptop that runs Windows. What's wrong with that. I just bought the MBA because Apple stopped developing XCode on Snow Leopard. Everyone I've showed it to wants to buy a PC based version of the same thing. Of course most of them are $200 cheaper than the Apple.
MacPro fate is doomed?
I think the current Mac Pro is an example of a product design that has survived beyond its time. Apple rather obviously wants to sell little boxes that people can fit together, using ThunderBolt, to deliver the advantages of the Mac Pro. Many users won't like that because their choices are likely to be reduced. But, Apple's revenue stream from the Mac Pro would stand to increase. After all, that is the *only* reason Apple has to keep it around.
I'll take Tim Cook at face value about a new Pro coming next year. Will it be a big box with lots of conventional slots? I'd be surprised.(Bet it's intended to be used with a 30-inch standalone Retina monitor.)
While pros want the latest, greatest and fastest, I think one reason Apple is considering ditching the MacPro is performance. I know we are comparing Sandy/Ivy with Xeons and differing number of cores and max memory, but it can be pointed out that current Mac laptops have approximately the same performance as the MacPro when it was released 5 years ago. Current consumer computers are wicked fast for most people. The 4k video editing crowd and the 100MB per photo professional are really a small niche in the Apple universe. That performance difference will be getting smaller as each year goes by.
I'll take Tim Cook at face value about a new Pro coming next year. Will it be a big box with lots of conventional slots? I'd be surprised.(Bet it's intended to be used with a 30-inch standalone Retina monitor.)
While pros want the latest, greatest and fastest, I think one reason Apple is considering ditching the MacPro is performance. I know we are comparing Sandy/Ivy with Xeons and differing number of cores and max memory, but it can be pointed out that current Mac laptops have approximately the same performance as the MacPro when it was released 5 years ago. Current consumer computers are wicked fast for most people. The 4k video editing crowd and the 100MB per photo professional are really a small niche in the Apple universe. That performance difference will be getting smaller as each year goes by.
Microsoft issued Windows 8 Release Preview
Operating System transitions take time, for other software to adapt, for users to adapt, and for feedback to work its way back to headquarters. Microsoft HAD to get Windows transitioned from XP where software expected the user to be admin to a user based O/S like Linux and Mac - otherwise virus and security issues put their whole future in peril. Most of Vista's problems were because other software hadn't adjusted to the user idea. By the time Windows 7 was released, most third-party software was rewritten and the prompts were reduced so the user experience became good again.
Microsoft feels now that their existence is again in peril, not from viruses but from tablets and phones. They need developers to write Windows software that works well on tablets. The only way to do this (due to the chicken and egg problem - developers won't write for a platform with no market share and nobody will buy a device without apps) is to force desktop software developers to write software for tablets. To do this, they have to make Metro the default and make the use of old software as unappealing as possible to give developers motivation.
I thought the moment I saw the new Metro interface that this release will be a disaster of cosmic proportions for Microsoft. First, they're assuming that desktop PCs are essentially dead, when, the oracular pronouncements of certain tech sites notwithstanding, nothing could be further from the truth. Second, they're also obviously assuming that Windows 8 will provide them with a decent (if not dominant) share of the tablet market, yet between Apple and Android, their chances of accomplishing that are minimal at best. Windows 7 was (and is) by far the finest operating system Microsoft has ever produced. Had they made even a few minimal improvements to it and re-branded it as Windows 8, they might have had another winner on their hands. Instead, they are now staring absolute disaster in the face.
Microsoft is taking a big gamble with Metro. Not because it feels like it, but because it has to.
With Windows 8 you're going to have to use the Metro and the start screen - there is no getting around it. Its there, no option to turn it off. It is the placeholder for all things Metro to come.
The world is moving increasingly to handheld devices such as mobile phones, tablets for day to day tasks. Basic internet browsing or rather social media, and dirt cheap gaming on the go is quickly eating away at its market and they have nothing to show for it apart from a <1% market share Windows Phone and the xbox, who's active subscribers only account for 30million world wide (vs 11 million just for World of Warcraft on the PC/Mac).
When you compaire that to Apple's 315 million iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices running its iOS - with over 15million iPads sold in q4 last year alone - Microsoft has serious problems trying to grabble back some of the mobile/tablet market.
Not only that, but Microsoft's Windows isn't even synonymous with using a computer anymore. People are quite happy to go online with android or an apple tablet now. Microsoft is rapidly losing its branding and the any reason why the average joe blogs needs to use it.
So here we are. Microsoft have took a long term look at things, are finally at the point where the xbox, mobile, and windows will be a (somewhat) seamless connection. They'll all look and perform the same, and at the same time, they'll drag the 500million desktop machines that are ready to upgrade to Metro. If they could do that, it'd bring them inline with what Apple has right now, and thats with their desktop machines alone.
Add on that the experiance works across the XBOX and windows Phone, they could end up being on top again within a few years.
Thats where Metro comes in to play. Without it, Microsoft has no brand that sets itself apart and it has no way to lock its uses into the Microsoft ecosystem. A lot of people who are using Apple products continue to do so because they've got their apps for iOS. Many will have spent, by now, a considerable amount of money on apps and music etc. Metro is being pushed, hard, it really is.
Metro is coming, and you'll be using it on Windows 8. Not many apps right now in the Windows Store, but when it starts pumping them out (100,000 in Windows Phone now) fewer people will be even using the desktop.
Why go search on google or bing for software, download the exe, or zip file, install it get tool bars, find out its wrong version, needs updating, etc and then have it mess up all your settings when you can just click on the Store icon, find a program and buy it.
Users will be locked good and proper into the Microsoft Windows ecosystem, and the quicker Microsoft can start locking users into it the better.
It gets worse. The tablet experiance for Windows 8 is quite nice, Metro as a whole on the Windows Phone is an amazing experiance (I've owned one for a while) and the xbox is great too (save for the silly layout/adverts they'd used), but for the users who go from a tablet/windows phone to a desktop... the experiance there is very very much lacking. It has to be inforced, it has to be the same across the platforms. Its why we're forced to use the start screen.
Its Microsoft's way of anchoring us to Metro and the Windows echosystem.
Microsoft feels now that their existence is again in peril, not from viruses but from tablets and phones. They need developers to write Windows software that works well on tablets. The only way to do this (due to the chicken and egg problem - developers won't write for a platform with no market share and nobody will buy a device without apps) is to force desktop software developers to write software for tablets. To do this, they have to make Metro the default and make the use of old software as unappealing as possible to give developers motivation.
I thought the moment I saw the new Metro interface that this release will be a disaster of cosmic proportions for Microsoft. First, they're assuming that desktop PCs are essentially dead, when, the oracular pronouncements of certain tech sites notwithstanding, nothing could be further from the truth. Second, they're also obviously assuming that Windows 8 will provide them with a decent (if not dominant) share of the tablet market, yet between Apple and Android, their chances of accomplishing that are minimal at best. Windows 7 was (and is) by far the finest operating system Microsoft has ever produced. Had they made even a few minimal improvements to it and re-branded it as Windows 8, they might have had another winner on their hands. Instead, they are now staring absolute disaster in the face.
Microsoft is taking a big gamble with Metro. Not because it feels like it, but because it has to.
With Windows 8 you're going to have to use the Metro and the start screen - there is no getting around it. Its there, no option to turn it off. It is the placeholder for all things Metro to come.
The world is moving increasingly to handheld devices such as mobile phones, tablets for day to day tasks. Basic internet browsing or rather social media, and dirt cheap gaming on the go is quickly eating away at its market and they have nothing to show for it apart from a <1% market share Windows Phone and the xbox, who's active subscribers only account for 30million world wide (vs 11 million just for World of Warcraft on the PC/Mac).
When you compaire that to Apple's 315 million iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices running its iOS - with over 15million iPads sold in q4 last year alone - Microsoft has serious problems trying to grabble back some of the mobile/tablet market.
Not only that, but Microsoft's Windows isn't even synonymous with using a computer anymore. People are quite happy to go online with android or an apple tablet now. Microsoft is rapidly losing its branding and the any reason why the average joe blogs needs to use it.
So here we are. Microsoft have took a long term look at things, are finally at the point where the xbox, mobile, and windows will be a (somewhat) seamless connection. They'll all look and perform the same, and at the same time, they'll drag the 500million desktop machines that are ready to upgrade to Metro. If they could do that, it'd bring them inline with what Apple has right now, and thats with their desktop machines alone.
Add on that the experiance works across the XBOX and windows Phone, they could end up being on top again within a few years.
Thats where Metro comes in to play. Without it, Microsoft has no brand that sets itself apart and it has no way to lock its uses into the Microsoft ecosystem. A lot of people who are using Apple products continue to do so because they've got their apps for iOS. Many will have spent, by now, a considerable amount of money on apps and music etc. Metro is being pushed, hard, it really is.
Metro is coming, and you'll be using it on Windows 8. Not many apps right now in the Windows Store, but when it starts pumping them out (100,000 in Windows Phone now) fewer people will be even using the desktop.
Why go search on google or bing for software, download the exe, or zip file, install it get tool bars, find out its wrong version, needs updating, etc and then have it mess up all your settings when you can just click on the Store icon, find a program and buy it.
Users will be locked good and proper into the Microsoft Windows ecosystem, and the quicker Microsoft can start locking users into it the better.
It gets worse. The tablet experiance for Windows 8 is quite nice, Metro as a whole on the Windows Phone is an amazing experiance (I've owned one for a while) and the xbox is great too (save for the silly layout/adverts they'd used), but for the users who go from a tablet/windows phone to a desktop... the experiance there is very very much lacking. It has to be inforced, it has to be the same across the platforms. Its why we're forced to use the start screen.
Its Microsoft's way of anchoring us to Metro and the Windows echosystem.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Future Predictions for smart phone
2050 is 38 years from now, it is difficult to even predict. Every year, the tech cost is becoming half of last year or trend is exponentially progressing towards making new innovations. Just a point of thought, we are all struggling now with the storage requirement, fund or energy sources it requires now and not seeing enough long term justification of building non valuable huge data across social or contents connecting not only every human but also every piece of machines incl. household hardwares. How would this kind of future phones would operate over the data storage challenge globally when information will be a problem, not a virtue as we will struggle on filtering the value. What may be the environmental impact on energy sources it will require? Agree on the possibility and much beyond of what is reflected as a simple phyloshopy - combination and improvising of existing features can really integrate to much more sophistication, but it has a cost to pay.
Another revolution in medically based technology, which although just beginning to be available and utilized successfully on ‘smart phones’ are app’s which enable people to actually receive and engage in medical therapy. One such innovative, remarkable app called Live OCD Free has been developed to treat and interactively engage sufferer’s of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCD affects over 3% of the entire world’s population and is often a silent, debilitating, life destroying illness which is difficult and expensive to treat and usually impossible to find adequate treatment if not located in a metropolitan area. This app is currently available for iPhone’s and can provide treatment for those unable to receive care elsewhere or in conjunction with a therapist. Think of the future implications to people suffering from various illnesses and how much can be done through this smart phone, Pocket Therapist technology in the future! My daughter suffers from Extreme OCD and is using this app for treatment. It has changed our lives! I, personally, am very enthusiastic about the future of smart phone technology.
Another revolution in medically based technology, which although just beginning to be available and utilized successfully on ‘smart phones’ are app’s which enable people to actually receive and engage in medical therapy. One such innovative, remarkable app called Live OCD Free has been developed to treat and interactively engage sufferer’s of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCD affects over 3% of the entire world’s population and is often a silent, debilitating, life destroying illness which is difficult and expensive to treat and usually impossible to find adequate treatment if not located in a metropolitan area. This app is currently available for iPhone’s and can provide treatment for those unable to receive care elsewhere or in conjunction with a therapist. Think of the future implications to people suffering from various illnesses and how much can be done through this smart phone, Pocket Therapist technology in the future! My daughter suffers from Extreme OCD and is using this app for treatment. It has changed our lives! I, personally, am very enthusiastic about the future of smart phone technology.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Google Warns Users Who May Be Targets of State-Backed Hacks
“We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer,” Mountain View, California-based Google said on a company blog. That's a very big and serious statement made by Google.Believe it or not, it is serious to just think of the possibilities what google said in their blog.
U.S. officials often cite China as a source of international attacks. Other countries are implicated as well. A report last week in the New York Times cited the U.S. and Israel as being behind the Stuxnet computer-worm attack that damaged centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010.
So guys, any idea how to make sure we didn't get into trouble?Google is the part of the New World Order?
U.S. officials often cite China as a source of international attacks. Other countries are implicated as well. A report last week in the New York Times cited the U.S. and Israel as being behind the Stuxnet computer-worm attack that damaged centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010.
So guys, any idea how to make sure we didn't get into trouble?Google is the part of the New World Order?
Monday, June 4, 2012
Dell inspiron N4010 (14R) Windows 7 Driver
But t
So, here is the driver (i didn't list optional download, only important driver)
1. CHIPSET DRIVER
(download all 3 drivers for chipset)
Intel HM57 Express Chipset Family
Release Date: 12/27/2010
Version: A03 9.1.1.1020
Compatibility (win xp/vista/7 32 and 64 bit)
Download
Realtek RTS5138 Card Reader
Release Date: 4/16/2010
Version: A03 6.1.7100.30111
Compatibility (win xp/vista/7 32 and 64 bit)
Download
Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI)
Release Date: 12/28/2010
Version: A01 6.1.10.1052
Compatibility (win xp/vista/7 32 and 64 bit)
Download
2. COMMUNICATIONS
Compatibility (win xp/vista/7 32 and 64 bit)
DW5620 Mobile Broadband mini-card : Download
D400 External USB 56K Modem- Utility : Download
D400 External USB 56K Modem - Application : Download
3. INPUT
(mouse, keyboard, touchpad etc)
Dell MOD-SRV,SW,INSP,1110 - Touchpad
Release Date: 4/16/2010
Version: A00 14.0.15.0
Download
Dell BT Travel Mouse Application Release
Dell KIT,MSE,BLTH,5BTN,TRVL,PNK,MAL
Release Date: 11/9/2011
Version: A02-00 SP_4_80_B103
Download
4. ETHERNET/LAN
(for wired connection using lan port)
Atheros AR8152 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
Download
5. STORAGE:
Intel Rapid Storage Technology
Release Date: 6/14/2010
Version: A02 9.6.0.1014
Download
6. GRAPHIC/VIDEO/VGA
There are 2 applicable graphic driver which is ATI and INTEL
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650
Release Date: 3/24/2011
Version: A25 8.783.3.0000
compatibility (win 7 32/64 bit)
Download
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD
Release Date: 5/28/2010
Version: A06 8.15.10.2104
Compatibility : Win Vista/7 64 bit
Download
(normally for 32-bit windows 7 will automatically install the intel hd graphic driver, if it does not, then run automatic updates to install it)
7. WIRELESS
Centrino Wireless-N 1000 : Download
Wireless 365 Bluetooth : Download
Intel(R) WiFi Link 6200
Intel (R) WiMAX Link 6250
Intel (R) WiFi Link 6250: Download
Wireless WLAN 1501 Half Mini-Card (4313bgn) : Download
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