"The only way to be truly satisfied, is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." Steve Jobs
Once "inking" gets into your veins you will never be able to live without it. Frank J. Garcia

My Surface PRO 3 'Must Have' Accessories List

Monday, June 30, 2008

AT&T DSL vs Comcast Cable Internet

I switched my phone service and my DSL Internet from AT&T to Comcast, the cable provider on my area. AT&T Service is the worse you can imagine in all senses in where I live (South Florida). To give you an idea, I called them 40 minutes ago to confirm my service cancellation and I still waiting for anybody to take my call. And it has been on that way every time I call them. But anyway, that's just part of the reason why I'm leaving AT&T. Comcast has a combined service of Cable Internet and phone over IP that's a lot cheaper than what I'm paying to AT&T at this moment. The other reason why I'm switching can be seen in the next two screen shots.

ATTSpeed

comcast DSL

Friday, June 27, 2008

TOUGHBOOK CF-U1 DEMO

A Video of the first Industrial UMPC from Panasonic has been posted at Youtube.

This demo can be categorized as a classic demonstration of how UMPCs can be used in many different real live situations.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Patent on Touch Screen Technologies?

Yesterday I received a few Google's Alert messages relative to TabletKiosk. I disregarded them because I covered the initial news while back and secondly because all this is just a bad joke. Today, Gail Levy, Marketing Director of TabletKiosk has posted a short note in her blog clarifying a few things about this lawsuit.

If Typhoon Touch Technologies can own the universal license for all Mobile Touch Screen Technology, then maybe I should apply for a patent that covers making a call on a mobile phone or using a knob to turn on a car radio...

After reading all her explanation all I can say is that TabletKiosk has all my support on this one. Touch is a human sense and as far I can understand it can't be patented. And if Typhoon wins this lawsuit I'm going to patent "peeing". That for sure will be an easy way for me to get rid of all my debts.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Windows XP was not a lot better

I read daily a lot of comments from people frustrated with Vista, the latest operating system from Microsoft and all of them have one thing in common, they end saying that they are going back to XP because XP is just a lot better.

Well, today, I read a not at Engadget that pointed me to an article where the author asked Bill Gates about an email sent by him describing his frustrations with Microsoft's Web Site and... You guessed... Windows XP.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

The above is just one of the comments of Bill Gates reflecting his frustration with the fact that he could not download and install Movie Maker. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone. I can't make Movie Maker to recognize my own profiles in my Vista Machine. The funny thing is that I went and downloaded the version 2.6 prepared for machines that do not have Aero and that version do recognize and work fine with those profiles. So... After 5 years, because that email was sent in 2003, we have not seen a lot of improvement with WMM.

But anyway, my whole point is that back in 2003 people were complaining about XP probably in the same way that probably those same ones now are complaining about Vista. And probably in about 5 years those same people will tell you that Vista is the best OS that they have used ever.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

ASUS Eee PC 1000H naked

Here is another naked lady courtesy of TweakTown, this time the victim is the newest Asus Eee PC 1000H.

Today we are going to strip down a juicier, more mature model; something seductively more endowed, and covered in glossy black. No more innocent “clad in white” teeny tid-bit viewing; this is an all-black leather mistress with her whips and chains, and it took a great deal of coaxing to calm her out of her plastic glossy black briefs. Rest assured though, that the few scars from the screws, and the torment as she teased us, nearly caused several explosions! - As you would have guessed by now, the story is diverse as well as slightly on the dark side. So please note that like our previous Eee PC exposé which you can view here, the content is slightly risqué.

untitled

HP 2133 Mini-Note naked

 moboI know that many of you enjoy looking at pictures of the gut of any new device. And that's what's all about this article recently posted at HP2133guide.com, tons of pictures of what is inside of a HP 2133 MiniNote.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Kohjinsha SX Series: 8.9 inch convertible with DVD drive

kohjinshasx1If you are thinking about to buy a mini Tablet PC the Kohjinsha SX could be the one you are looking for. This mini Tablet is fully loaded with all you need in a device even with this small size. 

8.9 inch 1280 * 768 touch screen
Intel ® Atom ™ processor Z520 (1.33GHz) with 1GB RAM
60GB HDD
Super Multi-DVD drive
Wifi and Ethernet
Dual cams
ExpressCard/34 slot
Micro-SD, SD/MMC and Memory Stick
USB2.0 x 2
VGA out
4.2 hours battery life with standard battery
8.2 hours battery life with extended battery
225mm * 185mm * 22/33mm, 1250g

Via: jkkmobile

Pictures for your Desktop

I have been taking some pictures lately to use it in my Windows Desktop. I have shown them to few friends and they liked it and asked me for the permission to use  them in their PCs. So I though that may be that some of you may want to do the same so here they are.

IMG_0025cIMG_0051IMG_0027IMG_0028

IMG_0029IMG_0032IMG_0035IMG_0019

IMG_0013IMG_0025

Here is the link to this set.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Korean Low Cost PC

20080623111824560Daewoo Lucoms launched what seems to me that is the Korean version of the OLPC, the LUKID. 

Based on Intel's Classmate PC, the LUKID is powered by Intel 900MHz Celeron processor and Windows XP OS. Adopting a 9-inch LCD display, 512MB of RAM and 30GB HDD, the LUKID supports wireless LAN, SD card slot and USB port.

Via: AVING USA - Global News Network

Sunday, June 22, 2008

QuikMaps

CaptureQuikMaps is apparently a new service coming soon and currently in beta. This site allows users to create maps with the ability of writing notes or drawing lines in these maps. A really good tool for Tablet PC and UMPC owners.

Short video of the SPH-9200

I thought that Samsung was not selling any more the SPH-9200 but for what I can see in this video they showed this UMPC recently in a Communication Event in Asia.

Do Samsung think to sell this UMPC in USA or Europe anytime soon?

Friday, June 20, 2008

Cleaning a CD/DVD with a banana?!

I thought that in my more than 15 years working with PCs, 10 of them as IT Manager I would have seen every single trick relative to how to clean a CD or DVD. But Today I discovered how wrong I was. I found this video explaining how to cleaning a CD/DVD with a banana and proving that it works. I have to confess that I have not tested myself because I still have my doubts about it.

Some Fujitsu P1610 drivers has been updated

Some of the Fujitsu P1610 drivers has been updated at Fujitsu USA Site. Comparing my latest driver list with them I have found that the Audio (Sigmatel) have been updated to 6.10.5866 and there is an update for the HDD Shock sensor utility to make it compatible with SP1.

I'm going to check the Audio driver tonight because I'm a little bit confused with the two files hosted at Fujitsu site. Also, I'm planning to install the V7.14.10.1461R and test it for a while. I'm currently using V7.14.10.1461 but it's too unstable for me.

The rest of the changes marked as updated at Fujitsu are drivers that in one way or another I had already.

It's good to see some changes at Fujitsu P1610. But I still disappointed, it's unbelievable that a device that is around 2 years and Vista has been around for a while and Fujitsu still have drivers that are dated from 2006. 

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Know the inside of the VIA OpenBook

Your may already know the New OpenBook from VIA but I can tell you for sure that what you are about to see is what you never have seen before no matter how many videos hare your seen of this device: the inside of an OpenBook.

VIa's Tim Brown rips open a VIA OpenBook mini-note to reveal the internal hardware guts and show off the PCI Express Mini Cards and 52 pin edge connectors that enable the WiMAX, HSDPA, EV-DO, W-CDMA, WiFi, Blue Tooth and AGPS connectivity for the world's most open and connected Mini-Note. The USB interface and the PCIe half-Mini Card and full-Mini Card form factor are fast becoming the industry standard with more companies developing cards and reference design cards that will make manufacturing custom VIA OpenBook mini-note designs even simpler and faster.

Video Ahtec Tiny TN120 TabletPC/Notebook

Ahtec has began to sale in Europe the Tiny TN120 Tablet PC. A device with a 12.1 inches display loaded with bunch of different options that make this device a really good Tablet. Warning: The video is in Spanish.

TodoUMPC Foro: Video Ahtec Tiny TN120 TabletPC/Notebook

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

New version of Tweaks2K2 Released

Version 3.31.0 of Tweaks2K2, the ultimate registry hacking tool for Windows Mobile Devices has been released.

Capture

3 new hacks have been added to this release.

Flybook V5 available in USA

The Flybook V5 is available at Flybook site for North America. This mini Tablet has about the same spec than the Fujitsu P1620 but the Flybook cost a lot more, around 3000 dollars.

gold_v5_back1

Even when this device is aiming clearly to the business market it seems to me that is a little bit over priced. Probably because they added actual gold to the paint, don't you think Tongue out

Via Wired.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Firefox site collapsed

I think that Firefox guys are going to have serious problems trying to brake the World Record of the most downloaded program in one day because they site has been most of the day down!

cosa

Update: I just gained access to their main page a few minutes ago and downloaded it!

Toshiba UMPC and software demonstration

I just found this video from CES of Toshiba demonstrating it's first UMPC. The UMPC does not look too good to me from the point of view of exterior design but wait until you see how good is the application that they have created to interact with this device.

RazorBook 400 Video

My colleague Rob Bushway from GottaBeMobile has just published a video about the RazorBook 400, a subnotebook with a price tag of 299 dollars. Another one against the Asus Eee PC.

P1610: The latest driver is not always the best

Drivers play a very important role in the performance of any device. I often have seen people reporting that it takes up to 5 minutes and even more to boot Vista and I always though it was just exaggerations of these persons because in my Samsung Q1 with a Celeron at 900 MHz I was booting in about 2 mins. But all that changed when I got my Fujitsu P1610.

After hours and hours looking for the latest drivers a few days ago with the help of DriverMax I ended with all my drivers updated up to their latest versions. But I was not happy. For some reason my P1610 was taking a long time to boot or come back from hibernation, up to 3 times or more of the time I was experienced in my Q1. So I knew that something was not fine.

So I decided to check again the Intel Graphic Driver and I started by going to Fujitsu European site where I recalled to have read a note about some problems with the latest version of the driver from Intel. And there it was that note:

Capture

And sure enough that was the driver version that I was using: 7.14.10.1461R

My next step was to check Singapore site where I have found some newest files than the ones in the USA site. The driver version was V.7.14.10.1147R (there is a mistake at the site version shown). I downloaded it and installed it and after a restart I found the boot time back to "normal". And don't get me wrong, normal means up to the same level I have in my Q1 not to XP levels.Thinking

I still find Vista in my P1610 not as stable as in my Q1, from time to time Explorer becomes unresponsive and restarts. One easy way to reproduce this problem or issue is by opening the Control Panel and closing it. But this could be caused by any of the programs listed in the Control Panel not being fully Vista compatible.

So the quest for the best drivers still on even when now my P1610 is working a lot better.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Add a HSDPA Modem to your Q1UP

Some users do not like the idea of having anything connected to their UMPC via USB. If you are like that and you own a Q1UP you probably will find this HOW TO very useful.

MODEM-2

Microsoft Veda, what the heck is this?

Unwiredview has posted pictures taken from a Microsoft Patent described as “Multi-mode multimedia device and computing system”.

microsoft-vedo-profiles

I really don't know what to say... Somebody has to work really hard with this design... But the concept behind seems a good one for a UMPC.

Limited broadband connection?

I know that you may not believe it but I have reading lately a lot of reports like this.

Now, the idea of capped service with metered rates, stern warnings, or cancellations above a monthly limit are fully in fashion. For the last few years, companies like Comcast and Verizon's wired broadband division have warned users about excessive downloads, degraded their service, or canceled their accounts, often with little recourse, and sometimes denying it all the while. Enough states' attorneys general and FCC staff and commissioners have been involved that what was implicit has become explicit, but with the related effect that caps have become much lower than what they were in the ad hoc days before these changes.

I have read about same plans at AT&T so probably the happy days of unlimited broadband are gone and your will start to see in your bill a new charge for browsing too much.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Win a Zune


Get your fix of news, sports, movies and<br /> more on your phone and you could win* a Zune instantly.
Check out all the easy-to-use features
MSN® Mobile offers and enter your mobile number for a chance to win a Zune now.

Windows Live™ Hotmail®—one click away
Fox Sports—scores, news, headlines, photos
MSNBC News—breaking headlines, photos, stories
Money—chart the market, track your stocks
Entertainment—movies, TV, music, news, celeb scoops, photos
Weather—local reports, search
Movies—local times, listings, reviews, photos
Live Search—search on the go
Windows Live Messengerconnect to your world
Windows Live Spacesshare your experiences

There’s no charge to use MSN Mobile, but you will need a Web-compatible mobile device and a data plan with your carrier.

Go to mobile.msn.com for your fix and a chance to win.

Cheers,
The MSNMobile Team

Check out MSN Mobile


*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Legal residents of the 50

United States (D.C.) 13 years or older. Ends 6/30/08. For rules,

including online method of entry, odds, and prize descriptions

visit http://clients.air-cast.us/msn_zune. Void where prohibited.


Microsoft Corporation | One Microsoft Way | Redmond, WA 98052



Nothing is wrong guys, it's just me "Copying and Pasting" this email from Msn team. I though that probably some of you would like to win a Zune even after all I said about it a few days ago. Tongue out

Noahpad video demonstration

Here is a video of a new coming UMPC with. very interesting new feature: a Touch keyboard.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

CR2T - Compact Flash CF to 2.5” SATA Spanning / Mirroring Enclosure

cr2tSans Digital is selling a new enclosure that could be used to replace a HDD for a cheaper solution than a SSD. One of the characteristics that I like of this one is that it gives you the possibility of mirroring the contests of one card in the second one adding to this device an extra layer of safety.

Unlike existing RAID units that employs hard drives for storage space, the CompactSTOR CR2T utilizes pocket-sized lightweight Compact Flash cards as storage memory for data safekeeping. The CR2T supports spanning and RAID 1 (mirroring) by housing up to two Compact Flash cards. Designed with the same size and connectors as a 2.5” SATA hard drive, the CR2T is compatible with the hard drive slot of laptops, industrial PCs (IPC), small form factor computers, and 2.5” hard drive enclosures. By utilizing Compact Flash cards as storage, the CR2T embraces the same benefits as Solid State Disks (SSD), including less power consumption, minimized heat generation, shock prevention, and noiseless operation. The user is able to benefit from the features of a Solid State Disk at a fraction of the cost while using the CR2T.

CR2T - Compact Flash CF to 2.5” SATA Spanning / Mirroring Enclosure

Origami Experience 2 just released

Microsoft has just released Origami Experience 2, the popular software within the UMPC owners. The software which can be downloaded here, includes a new functionality called Now that helps users to quickly access many other functions.

There are two new options that I love very much: Password, a new password screen for Windows that uses pictures, and a "tile" that allow me to check animated pictures posted on the web. I use this tile linked to a Weather Radar image of South Florida.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Memo From Microsoft's Kevin Johnson

Many of you are probably following the "Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo process" and so do I. Well, it seems that that's not going to happen, and a proof of that is this memo from Kevin Johnson published at Wall Street Journal Web site.

I wanted to take an opportunity to provide my thoughts and perspective on the conclusion of our discussions with Yahoo!, and its announcement of a commercial agreement with Google.

As I shared in my mail on May 18, we have better options than a full combination with Yahoo! at the price it suggested, and we have moved forward on our strategy to grow our online business.

Let me share a little background with you. When we made our original proposal on February 1st to combine with Yahoo!, we offered a 62% premium that was based on a desire to reach an agreement in short order. The faster we could reach an agreement, the sooner we could begin the regulatory process and create value through this combination.

In a March 10th meeting in Palo Alto, we explained to Yahoo! management the importance of reaching an agreement by the end of April in order to have an opportunity to complete the regulatory process by the end of this calendar year. Because we could not come to an agreement on price by the end of April and given our concerns about Yahoo!'s business performance, we elected to withdraw our bid and pursue better options for Microsoft.

During the last few weeks, we spent a considerable amount of time with Yahoo! discussing an alternative proposal around search. Specifically, this search proposal had three components:

• Microsoft would have invested $8 billion in Yahoo! at $35/share;
• Microsoft would have purchased Yahoo!'s search assets for $1 billion, and assumed the operations and R&D expense while returning data back to Yahoo! for use in their advertising business; and
• Microsoft and Yahoo! would have entered into a long-term search partnership, where Microsoft would have provided favorable economics to Yahoo! search, including a three-year guarantee of higher monetization than Yahoo!'s Panama paid search system currently provides.

This partnership would have created a stronger competitor to Google, providing greater choice and innovation for advertisers, publishers and consumers. This approach could have been implemented quickly and would have simplified the integration process for both parties. It would have also established the basis for a long-term Internet partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft.

We believe this proposal would have created compelling value for Yahoo! and its shareholders in at least three ways:

• New Transfer of Cash to Yahoo! Shareholders. This proposal would have transferred $9 billion from Microsoft to Yahoo!, which could have been used by Yahoo! to reward their shareholders.
• A More Profitable Ongoing Business. This proposal would have resulted in higher operating income on an annual basis for Yahoo!, with our projections more than doubling Yahoo!'s operating income in the first year of operation, and increasing it by more than $1 billion above its current operating income level.
• A More Compelling Search Offering. The combination of the search platforms would have unlocked new R&D innovation, eliminated redundant engineering efforts and allowed for greater scale in serving our customers.

Taken together, we believe that our proposal would have created total value for Yahoo!'s shareholders in excess of $33 per share.

Unfortunately Yahoo! has chosen a different course, and yesterday announced an agreement that would start to consolidate over 90% of the paid search advertising market in Google's hands. This will make the market far less competitive. There are many experts who suggest that a host of legal and regulatory problems lie ahead for Google and Yahoo!.

Regardless of Yahoo!'s decision, we will continue to move forward on our strategy in online services and advertising.

Since my mail on May 18, we have been making great progress. At our advance08 conference, we announced Live Search cashback and Live Search Farecast, and the initial response to these user experience and business model innovations in search has been very positive. On June 2nd, we also announced a distribution deal with HP, the world's largest PC manufacturer, to install a Live Search-enabled toolbar on all HP consumer PCs planned to ship in the United States and Canada, beginning in January 2009.

We look forward to sharing more milestones and details on our plans as we head to MGX and our Financial Analyst Meeting in July.

I remain confident in our assets, plans and people to succeed in building our online business. Thanks again for your commitment and focus.

Regards,

Kevin Johnson
President Microsoft Platforms & Services Division

Dell E netbook. Images, specs, pricing revealed

Americans love to read newspapers in the morning while having breakfast. I do read RSS news! And Today I found this news at UMPCPortal, one of the best sources of news about UMPCs  owned by my colleague Chippy: The Dell E netbook specs and pricing!

This will certainly compete well with the HP, Acer, ASUS, MSI and ECS and if battery life and mobility is your concern, it looks like one of the better choices.

Is the time to sell your Axim at eBay and get one of these Chris? Let see if we can get one of these to review... and talk about it here.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

DriverMax, free solution for your drivers issues

img1_1162351Since I got my Fujitsu P1610 I have been searching for the latest Vista Drivers for this machine. The available drivers at Fujitsu Website are not the latest in some cases and most of them are not completely stable. And if you have a portable device with a driver that is not working stable you whole machine becomes unstable, slow and that's simply annoying.

During all this time I have been testing different programs that you can find around the web that promise you to find the latest drivers and I even pay for one of them to discover that during the trial version the developers made you believe that they have some drivers for you and the reality once you pay and download the drivers is that they are not compatible with what you have.

Well, Yesterday I found this program called DriverMax that was promising virtually the same thing than the other programs but with few differences, DriverMax is a freeware and DriverMax really worked for me. It allowed me to backup all my drivers, search, find and Install few new updates for those drivers in my P1610.

Why such good program is free? I asked myself the same question. So far the only explanation that I have is that the search for drivers results are shown in their site where you have to open a free account. In their site they have Google adds inserted in many places so I believe that that is what is paying for the program.

How they have such good Drivers database? It seems to me that during my search process the program compare my drivers with what they have online and it took and uploaded in their database at least two drivers from my machine. That means that the next time a P1610 owner or anyone in need of those latest drivers check their database those drivers will be found and they are going to be installed in that machine. A very clever method of making money and keeping a good and clean service.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Toshiba's 1.8-inch 160GB disk hits 5,400rpm

toshiba_1.8_hdd_(160gb)mk1617gsgThis is a extremely important news because like I always says, performance is a multiple variables equation. It's not a matter of just having a good processor, you need a good graphic chip, you need memory and you need a fast HDD also. Today, all the HDD running in our UMPCs are running at 4200 RPM, and that makes all the HDD operations extremely slow. That's why this news posted at Engadget is to me one of the best news for the Small Factor PC community.

While others have hit the magical 160GB mark in an 8-mm thick form factor, this is the first 1.8-inch SATA to reach 5400RPM.

Monday, June 09, 2008

NVIDIA's Drew Henry on VIA's Mini-ITX 2.0

VIA + Nvidia sounds like a real competition against Intel.

NVIDIA's Drew Henry talking at VIA's Computex Press Conference about VIA's Mini-ITX 2.0 platform.

I personally have been following VIA for the last two years and I think that this is a strong step in the right direction.

Write in the air

 4BAccording to this news SMK Corp has shown a pen that can transmit characters written in the air.

The pen has a built-in triaxial acceleration sensor and the Bluetooth function. The sensor detects the positional information and recognizes the inputted characters. The characters are wirelessly transmitted to a monitor via Bluetooth. The maximum transmission distance is reportedly about 10m. It is expected that the pen will be used in place of a laser pointer in sales presentations.

It seems to me that using this pen any notebook could become a Tablet PC!

Make your own multitouch pad

Multitouch is what everybody is talking about since Microsoft demo of Windows 7 and there is a way for anybody to experiment a little bit with this new way to interact with a PC: creating your own Multitouch pad. All you need is a cardbox and a webcam. Check this video for all the instructions.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Jason Dunn unboxes the HP 2133 Mini Note

Jason Dunn is a very well known person by anyone that has ever owned anything small with batteries. This is why this unboxing video about the HP 2133 is really something that anybody thinking about to buy one of those should check.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Normally I don't, but I have to say, one look at the HP 2133 Mini Note and I felt my heart flutter - it's damn fine looking!

Via: Digital Home Thoughts

Zune, I have to say this

I love my Zune but I hate so much the Zune software in my computer that I'm not using my mp3 player as often as I should. I use to criticize iTune software for heavy and resource sucker but Zune Software is today the champion of all the champions. On top of that, it's a software that was from the beginning - I'm talking about the second version of it which replaced the one based in WMP. The most popular options such like Smart List were removed from it. Now they put it back but again... It's buggy! Come on! Does the Zune team  have a group of MVP helping them to tune their program? I really do not understand.

And I really get frustrated when I see a good product being treated with such lack of... lack of... lack of... brain.

iTune uses a lot of resources but it works, every single time it works. I do have there songs removed and added from my iPod without any apparently reason and I do not get duplicated play list every time I sync. I have more than 20 play lists in my Zune when I'm supposed to have only 5! The play list creation screen sucks... I had to get help in a forum to find how I can select two categories in one play list - The whole Ctrl+Mouse Click Idea was just fantastic... they just forgot to mention about it on that screen in somewhere.

And my main problem with all this is this question:

Why consumers have to work as beta testers of a product that should just be doing what it's supposed to do out of the box? And don't come to me saying that it does it because it plays music because the music does not get into the player because Mandrake the Magician puts it in there.

I have gave Microsoft Zune team a lot of time... but things are not getting anywhere better... it's all the same old s.... (you know).

Well... Now that I said it here, in public, I feel a lot better.

Atoya, the new kid in town

20080605160021593Atoya is the latest UMPC/mini notebook shown at Computex by Medion, a known OEM for UMPC owners. 

Adopting a 10-inch screen with 1024*800 resolution and 1.3M webcam, the Akoya supports 802.11n wireless LAN, 1GB of DDR2 memory and 80GB HDD.

The price of this one is going to be around 400 Euros. What I can say... I just can remember when a year ago nobody believed that UMPCs were a good business.

Via: AVING USA - Global News Network

Thursday, June 05, 2008

VIA introduces the OPENBOOK

There is not any other better way of introducing a new device to the market than a good video.

I have to confess than it was not clear for me what they meant by Openbook and this video clarified all my doubts.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Biocert for P1610, part 2.

I recently posted about Biocert Intelligent Identity Manager,  a very good program to have installed in any Fujitsu P1610. James Childers President and CEO of ASG Global, maker of this program read our short article and left us the following comment that I would like to share here because it helps to clarity few things that probably were not too clear in my notes:

As the President and CEO of Artemis Solutions Group (ASG Global) - the owner of the BioCert trademark - I wish to thank you for your kind article about the BioCert Identity Manager. We are very proud of this program and the feedback we are getting from customers.

I must point out a few facts about our version of this software. While, yes, you are correct that our version (BioCert IDentity) and HP’s product are based upon the same original software “codebase”, there are some major differences between the versions.

Our version of the software is more full-featured and offers the additional capabilities of file or folder encryption, multiple user login, network and VPN login, multi-factor authentication capabilities and an administrative control panel which offers a finer detail of the settings available to the user.

The version from HP is a “lite” version that only supports single user login and sso for the operating system that ships with the PC. So, if a customer orders a PC with VISTA and changes the OS to XP or Vista Business, HP has to this point not been willing to give the customer the version for any other version of the operating system than was shipped with the system from the factory.

The integration of the advanced encryption capabilities is only one of the principle reasons we do not offer a “demo” of this application. If someone were to encrypt their files using a “demo” application with a 30 day time-lock on it, when the time ran out, they would lose the ability to recover any encrypted files (whether on the local device or on removable storage) stored with the demo. Additionally, we sort-of consider the limited versions being shipped by the PC manufacturers as a trial demo of our full featured version.

We are very pleased that we are able to offer the BioCert IDentity software as an upgrade from the basic HP software or for any computer that has the Authentec 1610 or 2501 integrated within. We believe for our price of $29.95 the customer is receiving a tremendous value over and above what is provided by the PC manufacturers.

Thank you again for your kind words and your informative article.

Sincerely,
James Childers
CEO
Artemis Solutions Group
ASG-Global
http://www.mybiocert.com

Thanks again James for reading my article and leave this comment. I really liked your product and I'm recommending it to all our readers.

VIA UMPCs at Computex 2008

Here is a video that shows what is going on in VIA's exposition at Computex 2008. 

Tim Brown gives you a a quick look at the VIA UMPC at Computex 2008.

AMD wants also part of the UMPC market

 20080603164645420Yes, that's the message that AMD appears to be sending to the World at Computex 2008.

AMD revealed its 8.9-inch ultra low-cost sub notebook during Computex 2008, which is powered by AMD Sempron processor, ATI RS690 chipset and Linux OS.

AVING USA - Global News Network