no more single-core
Intel will be phasing out single-CPU production…they plan to introduce dual-core Celeron processors targeted at the low price segment of $34-$59.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20071011171900.html
Comcast interferes with Net traffic
…The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests…
…uploads of complete files are blocked or delayed by the company, as indicated by AP tests.
Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: “Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye.”
Sprint has a New Toy in its stable and it looks AWESOME
We received word this morning from Sprint that they will have the latest HTC SmartPhone available November 4th, The HTC Touch!
The Touchscreen Wireless Phone device runs Windows Mobile 6 features a 3″ Touch screen and allows emailing, listening to music, watching over the air video and checking out on demand services from Sprint. As a part of the On Board Memory, user will find a 512MB MicroSD card which is upgradable to 4GB. A on board camera captures at 2.0 MP camera and can also capture video with the phone with up to 5X zoom. Users of the Bluetooth® will like the Stereo bluetooth capabilities and Voice-activated dialing.
The Phone is priced at $249 with a two year agreement from Sprint with a $100 mail in rebate.
Wacom delivers with the new Bamboo Line
Wow! That’s the first word that came out of my mouth with the unboxing of the latest Wacom Tablet products under the new Bamboo Line. Not only does Wacom deliver with a tested and strong product but also with packaging that gives the user the feeling they are opening up a long cherished gift handed down through the generations or something you would find on the bed of a 5 star
resort.
An opening of the box will present the user of the Bamboo Fun with a welcome that states “This is your Bamboo, Use it to get more out of your computer. Let us know how it goes. “It is signed by Dennis Hoff, Wacom Consumer product manager. The Bamboo and the Bamboo fun both offer 4 programmable buttons that Wacom identifies as ExpressKeys to set up as Undo, Copy or a wide range of the commands most frequently used. A Ring in the center of these keys can be used for Zooming in and out of projects. The Bamboo and the Bamboo Fun work with both Mac and PC and supports Win2000 – Vista on the PC Side and Mac OS X on the Mac Side.
We opened up the Bamboo Fun Medium size unit in Silver. The Active Area for the screen is 8.5’Wide and 5.3″ from top to bottom. Wacom has two different sizes for the Bamboo Fun, Small and Medium. The Small size Bamboo Fun features an active area of 5.8″W x 3.7D. There are 512 levels of pressure sensitivity with the Bamboo Fun and the resolution is 2540LPI. The colors available are black, silver, white and blue.
The Bamboo Fun ships with the tablet, USB cable, a Bamboo Fun Mouse and Bamboo Fun Pen. Both the mouse and the pen use Wacom’s Patented No batteries, Wireless technology. The stylish looks of the tablet itself spill over to both the mouse and the pen holder which can be displayed nicely on the desktop. Software on DVD also ships with the Bamboo Fun to get you up and running with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Win/4.0 Mac, Corel Painter Essentials 3.0 and Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 GE. we love the feel of the Bamboo Fun unit, it is in line with the other Wacom products we have looked at including the Intuos 3 which offers more in detail and fine desktop graphics work. Users for this will still enjoy the ability to Edit, Paint, Draw, Handwrite and be up and running in no time. More information can be found at http://www.wacom.com/
The other product we took a glance at is the Wacom Bamboo Small Unit with an active area of 5.8″ x 3.7D. This unit is available only in Black however also features the 4 ExpressKeys and Zoom in/out ring. This unit is more designed for the user that will work this into handwriting type of features which are a part of Windows Vista or with the Mac Inkwell program. The tablet and included pen will work with Windows 2000 as well as XP and Vista as well as the Mac OS X 10.3.9. The Software bundle that ships with the Bamboo Fun is not available with this unit however with the recent release of the Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 it is certainly worth getting that program to work with the tablet. The Bamboo unit has an SRP of $99 while the Bamboo Fun in the Small size retails for $99 and the medium for $199. You can find the Wacom Bamboo products at most computer retailers. We found the Bamboo at CompUSA in the Mac Section.
new Mac OS Oct. 26
Figures…after I review a MacBook, Apple is about to release a new version of the operating system…
“Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard will be available on October 26 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $129 (US) for a single user license, and online pre-orders can be made through Apple’s online store (www.apple.com)…The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-household, five-user license that will be available for a suggested retail price of $199 (US). Volume and maintenance pricing is available…The standard Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after October 1, 2007 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Leopard requires a minimum of 512MB of RAM and is designed to run on any Macintosh® computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 Mhz or faster) processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs.
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…new Braille support for VoiceOver with Apple Braille Regular, Apple Braille Outline, and Apple Braille Pinpoint fonts.
“…Alex — a new English male voice…
“…refreshable Braille displays. VoiceOver detects and configures as soon as you plug them in. No additional software or setup is required.
“For the first time ever on a desktop computer, you can use a Braille display while installing or upgrading your operating system.
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Application-Based Firewall
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“..parental controls…
“Control exactly how much time your children spend with the computer each day. Limit total daily usage and define hours the computer can or can’t be used (set differently for weekdays and weekends)…
“…Apple technology automatically trys to detect inappropriate content and prevents those web pages from appearing. You can override the filter by identifying sites you wish to explicitly allow or disallow certain websites.
“…Leopard logs websites visited and applications used. It also maintains a list of people who have chatted with your child using iChat and a transcript of each text chat session.
“…setup and monitor parental controls on your child’s Mac from any Mac on your home network.
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“…TextEdit automatically save copies of your document at a specified time interval.
“…TextEdit support for the Word 2007 and OpenDocument formats for reading and writing.
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“…iChat recording…stores completed audio chats as AAC files and video chats as MPEF-4 files…
“In Leopard, iChat allows you to log in to all your chat accounts simultaneously, whether you use .Mac, AOL, Google Talk, or Jabber.
“Show nearly any file on your system through an iChat video conference. Put on an entire photo slideshow, click through a Keynote presentation, play a movie, and more — in full screen, accompanied by a video feed of you hosting.
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“Synchronize Address Book on your Mac with your Yahoo! address book. Just enter your Yahoo! account information in Address Book preferences to get started.
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“…Use a new action called Watch Me Do that lets you record a user action (like pressing a button or controlling an application without built-in Automator support) and replay as an action in a workflow.
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“Copy, open, modify, or delete files in Mac OS X that you saved to your Windows partition. Leopard understands the Windows FAT32 disk format.
“Run Windows XP and Windows Vista on your Mac at native speed with full compatibility. (Windows not included.)
“Install Windows without affecting your existing files. Boot Camp Assistant carves out the necessary disk space required by Windows automatically.
“Microsoft WHCL-Certified Windows Drivers…Enjoy the unique hardware features of your Mac including the iSight camera, trackpad scrolling, keyboard backlighting, and volume keys using fully compatible Windows drivers.
“Easily delete Windows and restore the disk space being used by the Windows partition back to Mac OS X.
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