Reports about Sony’s upcoming tablet(s) are quite literally all over the place. Some techies are reporting that as many as six different variants of the Sony S1 tablet have been passed through FCC channels in the final steps before launch, suggesting that, on the day they are finally released, buyers will have a host of configuration choices for the device. It has also been released that along with the FCC check came certification of the device to run on AT&Ts mobile network, although both parties are being extremely tight-lipped about anything like that.

Of course, the story does not stop with the S1. Paired to launch at the same time is Sony’s sister tabled the S2, which features a fairly radical design that is unlike any tablet on the market thus far. The S2 will feature a two 5.5 inch screen format, with both appearing on the same face of the tablet with a small break between them. This break is hinged, allowing the device to be closed against the screens for safe transport. The size of the tablet makes it small enough to slip in a coat pocket when closed, making it almost more like some mobile phones than tablets currently on the market. This design is in stark contrast to the S1, which features a traditional single, 9.4 inch screen with a body that bends back straight against the device in the back, propping it up slightly. Both devices will run on the Google Android system, and Amazon may be setting aside special room in their tablet store for them both.

These new reports on the upcoming launch of the Sony tablets come at the same time Verizon fumbles its way into leaking news about its own new tablet, which may in fact be the Motorola Xoom 4G. The leak was made through a new video advertisement for the company’s expanding 4G services, and while it was taken down shortly after the mistake was notice, it has reappeared on YouTube here. Verizon is not saying anything about the tablet in spite of the leak, but the Xoom 4G is rumored to be in the final testing phases to work out minor tweaks. Still, the company will offer no schedule for release, and it is unclear what role the original Xoom might play after it walks into the market.

While the full field of tablets that will eventually flood into the market this fall is yet to be known, the Sony tablets are certainly poised to be strong contenders. Time will tell exactly what role the mysterious Xoom 4G will play in the mix, but Verizon’s lasting support for Motorola will surely help the tablet out. Those planning to buy a new device ought best to wait a few months – the rank are about to fill out.

According to him, Acer Inc. predicts that about one third of its revenue will be generated by the profits from tablet and smart phone sales by 2015.
Acer Inc is still in the phase of reorganizing itself after a sudden turnaround in situation when the company’s CEO left in March after a dispute about how to counter the massively growing tablet PC industry and how to safeguard company’s own core business, notebook and net books.

Jim Wong, who has recently taken over the role of President told reporters that Acer Inc. would now focus much more on tablet PCs and touch phones than earlier. According to him the new age belongs to touch technology and he & his team will do whatever they can to put the latest technology in the palms of users hands. The company has an ambitious plan to make up 13% of its revenue by touch products in 2013 and then about 33% of the revenue by 2015. And in touch products, Acer Inc will target the smart phones and tablet PC market along with its regular notebook business.

Ultrabooks is basically a new technology launched by Intel Corp. It’s a new category of notebooks that are ultra-light weight and perform much faster. Top chipmaker Intel has introduced high performance processors into the motherboards of these Ultrabooks. Intel anticipates that about 40% of the people who will buy a new laptop will have Ultrabooks by next year. Mr. Wong seems quite hopeful that Ultrabooks will help revive the notebook industry since there’s no doubt that tablet PCs can provide power packed computing performance much like the Ultrabooks can.

On the other hand, Acer’s rival and Netbook pioneer Asustek launched its first ultrabook at the Computex computer show in Taiwan on Monday.

Acer has been a dominant stake holder in the notebook industry with their cheap notebooks. Although they still lead the segment of low cost notebooks they have not been able to compete with the quickly growing tablet PC industry of, especially after the runaway success of Apple’s iPad.

In April, Acer Inc decided to cut is shipment target by 10% as compared to Jan- Mar the same year. This shows the drop in sales and low profits that the company is experiencing. Despite this, Wong is still confident that Acer is a major player in the industry and looks forward to increasing the company’s investments in China by establishing an R&D facility in Chongqing and another city in addition to the one already established in Shanghai. It seems like Acer is determined to succeed. It will be interesting to watch over the coming months.

KDE 4.3 is out now and the KNetwork Manager has matured quite a bit. Now this KDE tool has reached a point where it not only works consistently, it’s also quite easy to use – almost surpassing the GNOME Network Manager in user-friendliness.

But for those who have grown to depend on other means of connecting to the net (in KDE 4.x) by other means, the KNetwork Manager might seem a bit unfamiliar. In this tutorial you will see just how easy it has become to connect to a network (specifically a wireless network) with the help of KNetwork Manager.

Installation

You will be glad to know that there is no installation necessary for KNetwork Manager. But you will want to make sure you have the latest KDE updates. But you will want to make sure you are using the most recent version of KDE (As of this writing, KDE 4.3.2). To find out what version you are using open up the Dolphin file manager, go to the Help menu, and click “About KDE”. If you are using a version prior to 4.3.2 you will want to go to your update manager and check to see if there are any updates for KDE.

Accessing KNetwork Manager

Figure 1

If you look in the notification area you will find the KNetwork Manager icon (see the icon in the black square in Figure 1). If you click this icon (either right or left click) a menu will pop up that:

• Shows you if you are connected to a network.
• Allows you to stop an active network connection.
• Connect to a new network.
• Enable/disable wireless.
• Open the connection manager.

Figure 2

To create a new wireless connection either select “Connect to Other Network” or open the Connection Manager. Let’s start from the Connection Manager. Select that entry to open up the Connection Manager (see Figure 2).  As you can see there are already two network connections available. Let’s create a third.

Figure 3

In order to create a new network click the Add button, which will open up the New Network tool (see Figure 3). In this tool you can either add all of the information manually or you can click the Scan button to find the network you want to add. The scan tool is one of my favorite aspects of the new KNetwork Manager.

The Access Point Scanner (see Figure 4) gives you a graphical representation of all available wireless networks and their relative signal strength.

Figure 4

Obviously the network that appears closest to the PC icon in the window will have the strongest strength. And since that is the network I want to connect to I will select it and click OK. Unfortunately, by selecting a particular access point, the only configuration this adds to your connection is the SSID. You will have to go through the rest of the configuration and set the connection up. Make sure you  click on the Wireless Security tab (see Figure 5), select the proper security type, and enter the correct password for the security.

Figure 5

Once you have configured the connection you can OK this window to apply the changes and dismiss the connection wizard. All you then need to do is click the KNetwork Manager icon and select your new network connection to connect.

Final thoughts

I am very pleased with how the KNetwork Manager tool has matured. Prior to 4.3.2, the network tool was nothing I would ever recommend. Now, however, I can safely recommend this network manager to anyone.

The most interesting of the lot are definitely the new iMacs and the multi-touch mouse. The new Quad-Core iMac was heard coming long before, when the first rumors started circulating last month. Now that it is finally here, the differences from the old models are obvious. It has a stunning 27” display, Intel Core i5 (upgradable to Core i7) and has a huge screen space at 2560×1440 pixels.

But the excitement is not restricted to the highest model. The main thing that I would like to bring your attention to is the fact that all models (except the quad core) have Intel Core 2 Duo chips at 3.09GHz and have 4GB memory as standard. Plus, there is the brilliant new wireless Magic Mouse and wireless new keyboard that come standard with every iMac.

The Magic mouse is a brilliant piece of equipment. It has no buttons, is made out of aluminum and is topped off with a capacitive multitouch layer that works just like the MacBook’s glass trackpad. You can touch anywhere and you can scroll the full 360º if the application allows it. The whole surface clicks like the glass trackpad and you can even get it to emulate the two-button mouse. I say this is the best non-gaming mouse till date. Plus the tracking is now optical, so the Magic Mouse can track without a mousepad and on almost all surfaces. Gestures are supported and so is accelerated scrolling. So comparisons to the iPhone’s multitouch features are fully justified.

The MacBook gets a polycarbonate unibody, with the same built-in battery as the MacBook Pro line. So it now has a 7-hour rated battery life. There have been subtle design changes – the most noticeable is the lack of the sharp edge that really bugged people on the previous models. The display is now LED backlit, making the MacBook more eco-friendly and energy efficient.

MacMinis have received speed and storage upgrades but everything else is pretty much the same. There is now a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, $999 server edition that packs in two 500GB HDDs, Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard and lacks a DVD burner.

So now that we know what Apple had up their sleeves, it is time to talk about how this will help them in their race against Windows 7 and the slew of new computers that will be released during and soon after the Windows 7 launch.

Apple’s new strategy with iMacs is clearly to give users as much computing power as possible. The new entry point of 3.06 GHz and 4GB RAM is going to be a hit with the crowd because these are above average features at this time. So buying an iMac now would be a great thing because you will not have to upgrade for quite a while.

The new 27” Core ‘5/i7 iMac is clearly an attempt to woo those professionals who want something more affordable than a Mac Pro but something more powerful that the previous generation iMacs. This new iMac is going to be a hit with visual designers and also with musicians. Both have a lot of use for large screen spaces. Designers can do side by side comparisons while musicians can now see more things on screen. I for one would use this with Logic Pro and place the mixer and the arrangement areas side by side during the final mix down.

The two Mac Minis And the MacBook [white] have been through smaller updates. They are not very different spec-wise but the MacBook has changed quite a bit physically. It doesn’t seem like they will make much of an impact on their own but the price cuts are sure to bring in some more sales. To me, it seems like 2010 Q10 will be the bigger quarter for Apple and they will one-up Windows 7 with their tablet device. So this it for now and I don’t think the new Macs and Windows 7 will suffer a lot from each other. That is because the high-end will still go for MacBook Pros and iMacs and the average consumer will be torn between the Mac Mini and myriad Windows 7 systems. However, the MacBook [white] is likely to make it to quite a few stockings this year.

Powertop was created by Lesswatts.org with the sole purpose of helping users find those programs and/or systems that are using too much power. The end result? More battery life for you to enjoy. Power top is easy to install and use. Powertop is a curses-based application so it is run inside of a terminal very much like the Top application. Don’t expect a fancy GUI here, it’s text-based but still user-friendly. In this article you will find out how to install Powertop and use it to get the most out of your battery.

Installing Powertop

So long as you are using a modern release, you should find Powertop in your distributions’ repositories. And since Powertop is a terminal-based application, I will illustrate how to install via command line.

The steps are simple:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo install powertop.
3. Click ‘y’ to okay the installation.

That’s it. Powertop is now ready for you to use.

Using Powertop

Figure 1

With your terminal still open issue the command sudo powertop to start the application. You can not run Powertop as the standard user because Powertop has to collect and modify information that the standard user has no access to. Fortunately sudo will do the trick.

What you see will differ, depending upon your distribution, installation, configuration, etc.

As you can see ,in Figure 1, Powertop has a few suggestions to aid my laptop. The biggest issue is wakeups and Powertop is giving me the top causes for wakeups.

As you can also see, Powertop offers suggestions to solve the various problems. Not only does Powertop make suggestions, it will offer to take care of the suggestion for you. In the instance above you can see Powertop is suggesting I disable the hal system from polling my CD drive. You can do this with the command:

hal-disable-polling –device /dev/cdrom

or you can just hit the ‘K’ key and Powertop will take care of this for you.

Once you take care of this suggestion (whether you let Powertop take care of it or you do it manually) Powertop will then suggest another way for you get more power from your laptop and will offer to take care of the issue for you. You can continue on like this until Powertop has resolved every issue it can find.

Final thoughts

Powertop is an effective means of helping your laptop gain more battery life without having to recompile a kernel, manually edit a configuration file, or issue any commands (outside of starting the application). After following the suggestions of Powertop you should experience a noticeable difference in your battery life.

Cheese is not one of those applications that is going to make or break your desktop experience. But it certainly will enhance it. You can take standard pictures and even add effects to those pictures And Cheese doesn’t just do pics, it can do videos as well.

Getting and installing

Even though Cheese is a part of the GNOME desktop, it isn’t always installed by default. To install Cheese open up your Add/Remove Software utility, search for “cheese” (no quotes), select the results, and click Apply. To start Cheese look in the Graphics submenu of the Applications menu.

Figure 1

When you fire Cheese up it will instantly start seeing you. Figure 1 shows me stalking a penguin through the eyes of Cheese. You will also see two photos I have already taken of myself.

To snap a photo of yourself place yourself in the position (or goofy face) you want and press the Take A Photo button.

When the photo is snapped it will appear in the lower pane of the application.

Now those photos you have taken have not been saved. You must actually save them before you can use them. To save a photo right click the photo and select “Save As”. By default photos are saved in the ~/Pictures/Webcam directory and can only be saved in .jpg format.

From that same right menu you can choose to send a picture to a removeable device, import the photo into F-Spot, open the photo, or send the photo to the trash. There is one other option “Set as Account Photo”, which is supposed to set a photo to your About me and your login photo. I have yet to get this to work.

Effects

You can even add effects to a photo. You actually add the effects before the photo is taken, and you can add more than one effect  if you like. To add effects click the Effects button to list all of the possible effects.

Figure 2

As you click on an effect it will be highlighted. Click on as many effects as you like, but know that the more effects you add the slower Cheese will get (especially when adding effects like Vertigo and Warp.)

After you select the effects you want click the Effects button again and you will be returned to the normal screen, only now your photo will be “enhanced” by the effects you have chosen.

You can see the right photo of me was with the Vertigo and the Warp effects running.

Countdown

You will notice, in the Cheese main menu, a Countdown entry. If this entry is checked there will be a delay in the photo taking (so you can make yourself as photogenic as possible.) If you would prefer instant results uncheck that entry and photos will be snapped as soon as you hit the Take a Photo button.

Final thoughts

Cheese is not going to make you a more productive worker. In fact, it’s just fun enough that it might make you a less productive worker. But when you need that interface to your trusty webcam, just say “Cheese” and you’ll be ready every time.

But along comes System 76 to make good on all of the promises these companies have failed to deliver on. And make good did they do. When the boxes arrived from System 76 I was naturally skeptical. The last Linux-based laptop I reviewed showed some promise until very quickly the weakness of the hardware reared its ugly head. Fortunately, with the Pangolin Performance, I was happily surprised.

The machine shipped was not a base-line product. Instead System 76 shipped me a bit beefier machine (you can upgrade in the purchase process). The specs are as such:

• Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) 64 Bit Linux
• 15.4″ WXGA Super Clear Glossy LCD (1280 x 800)
• 512 MB DDR2 nVidia GeForce G105M
• Core 2 Duo P8600 2.40 GHz 1066 MHz FSB 3 MB L2 (25 Watt)
• 2 GB – DDR2 800 MHZ x 1 DIMM
• 250 GB 5400 RPM SATA II
• CD-RW / DVD-RW
• Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100 – 802.11A/B/G/N Up to 300 Mbps

As you can see, the specs were pretty sweet. Add to that Ubuntu 9.04 and you have the makings of a fairly powerful laptop. Cost? $914.00. But does it stand up to its specs? And more importantly, does the hardware truly support Linux?

That last question is the one that really matters. Any time I see a company that touts their support for the Linux operating system my instincts tell me that they are going to ship with a version of Linux that is rolled up just for that hardware. That is not the case with the System 76 machine. The version of Ubuntu shipped is, for the most part, vanilla. There are two additional menu entries:

• One that displays the System 76 information for support purposes
• One for the fingerprint reader

Outside of that, it’s your basic Ubuntu 9.04. It’s fast and stable. But this isn’t a review of Ubuntu.

The speed of the laptop can not be dismissed. My own personal laptop matches up almost identically in spec to the Pangolin.  The only difference between the two is my laptop has an Intel graphics chipset. But the difference in performance is very noticeable. The Pangolin blows my Vaio away. In both performance and feel. I have reviewed Ubuntu 9.04 prior to this review and made note of the much-improved start up times for both os boot and application start. This speed up is even more noticeable on the Pangolin. And did I mention Compiz? The pangolin ships with Compiz enabled and it works flawlessly. It only takes a few steps to get full-blown Compiz running (which includes the Cube – you can read how to do this in my recent article “Enabling the Cube in Compiz“.)

The Pangolin has one of the best keyboards I have used on a laptop. The keys feel more like an Apple laptop with a bit more beef. The keys are well spaced and well laid out. As well the screen on the Pangolin is crystal clear with little glare.

The nit to pick

There is only one issue with the Pangolin, one of which can not be blamed on System 76. Because biometrics is new to the Linux desktop, GNOME has trouble with it. Even with the help of the tech, I have yet to successfully implement this feature into the desktop. Not that this is a big issue, but the laptop does have the fingerprint reader and I would hope that at some point it will work as the user would expect. Hopefully fprint reader will evolve to the point where the standard Linux desktop can take advantage of this type of hardware so companies like System 76 can offer these features out of the box.

And that is ultimately the best selling point of System 76 – their hardware works out of the box. The use can feel confident that what they purchase will work for them and work well. The elegant combination of Ubuntu 9.04 and the graceful look and feel of the Pangolin Performance laptop make a combination you can not go wrong with. Of all the Linux-based hardware companies I have ever dealt with, System 76 gets the highest recommendation I could offer.

Who would do well with a Pangolin?

If you are a new-to-Linux user and you just want something that works, this laptop is for you. If you do a lot of typing and you need a keyboard with well spaced and laid-out keys, this laptop is for you. If you need something with some power, but not something that will blow out your budget or burn down your house, this laptop is for you. If you are new to linux, a Linux guru, or anything in between, this laptop is for you. This particular laptop is perfectly in line for home use or business use. Either way you will get your money’s worth with this machine.

The wifi-wiz interface is easy to use and can save your networks so that reconnecting is simple. This is a boon for anyone who has had issues getting wifi working on a Debian-based laptop.

Getting and Installing

Installing wifi-wiz is simple. Download the compressed .deb file from the creators’ site. Once the file is on your machine open up a terminal window, change into the directory where the file was saved, issue the command:

tar xvf wifi-wiz.tar

and then issue the command (as root):

dpkg -i wifi-wiz.deb

which will install the package.

Running wifi-wiz

Once Wifi-wiz is installed you wan start the application with the command wifi-wiz. NOTE: You will have to have root privileges in order run the software.

Wifi-wiz Main Window

When wifi-wiz starts you will see a very simple, easy to navigate window where all of the action takes place.

The first thing you should do is click on the Scan button which will scan the area for wireless networks. When the scan is finished all you have to do is select the network you want to connect to, configure that network (with which protocol you will connect, what wireless security type, the security key for the network, and if you want to set the DNS servers. Once you have the settings for your network done all you have to do is click Connect and your laptop will quickly connect to the configured access point.

Saved Networks

Once you have a network saved in Wifi-wiz you can click on the manage tab to change any configurations necessary. From this tab you can also delete a network and disconnect from a network.

Settings

From the settings tab there is an important setting you can take care of. If you want to run the wifi-wiz daemon at boot you can set this option here. You can also set the interval between connection checks for the daemon. Once you make any changes to your connection properties make sure you click the Save Network button.

Final Thoughts

I have used many wireless device managers on Linux. I have also tried a number of wireless device managers on this particular laptop. The one manager for debian systems that works with the most consistency is Wifi-wiz. It’s simple to use, reliable, and (in some cases – such as Elive) is the only option that works.

If you are looking for a good wireless manager for Debian download Wifi-wiz and give it a go. And, if you’re up to the task, create an rpm from the deb so this application can be used on more distributions.

That’s usually not a problem unless the applications used demand lots of cpu power. That’s not the case when surfing the Internet, creating spreadsheets or writing a Word document. Both Intel and AMD provide techniques that reduce the cpu frequency of the laptop.

SpeedswitchXP is a small applet sitting in the system tray that makes use of those techniques. It provides access to four settings: Max. performance, Battery optimized, Max. battery and dynamic switching.

Max. performance is the default setting for the laptop. The cpu is running at full speed with it. Battery optimized reduces CPU speed while max. battery reduces the cpu speed even further for maximum battery capacity. Dynamic switching is the last option which dynamically changes the cpu frequency depending on demand.

SpeedswitchXP is an old software program. It was updated in 2006 the last time but it should work fine with several relatively new cpus like Intel’s core duo series.

Users who have used Intel’s Speedstep application for Windows 9x, ME and 2000 in the past will see many similarities between the two applicatons. SpeedswitchXP is providing additional options on the other hand and support for Windows XP.

Is it working for the cpu build into your laptop? I honestly cannot answer that question. The best bet is to try it out and see if it works.

The GPU may fail due to temperature fluctuations and users may experience symptoms like random characters or lines on the screen. The problem is that if customers experience those symptoms the Bios update will not help them anymore and they have to contact Dell support to fix the issue.

Everyone else should check the website to see if their Dell notebook is in the list and update the Bios of its GPU accordingly. The affected notebooks according to Dell are:

• Inspiron 1420
• Latitude D630
• Latitude D630c
• Dell Precision M2300
• Vostro Notebook 1310
• Vostro Notebook 1400
• Vostro Notebook 1510
• Vostro Notebook 1710
• XPS M1330
• XPS M1530

The Bios update will turn on the GPU fan more frequently at half or quarter speed to reduce temperature fluctuations. Dell confirmed once again that this will have no noticeable effect on battery life. New notebooks will be shipped with the updated Bios.

The real question however is which GPUs are affected but there does not seem to be a direct answer for this. There is however the list of Nividia GPUs that have been used in the affected Dell notebooks, here it is:

• 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
• 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS (64 bit)
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GS (128 bit)
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
• 128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M 256MB TurboCache (128MB dedicated)

My suggestion would be to check your notebook, even if it is not from Dell, to find out if a video card from the list has been used to build it. If that is the case contact the hardware manufacturer to find out how he handles the problem.

Those information would then be compiled, encrypted and used by the OpenDHT distributed storage service to store a location update of the notebook. These location updates can then be retrieved from another computer revealing information about IP addresses (internal and external), the time, access points and nearby routers.

This information can be filtered to display only data of a specific date range. This should be tested at least once to make sure everything has been setup correctly.

The Adeona software is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh. The Mac version has an interesting additional feature. It can create screenshots with a camera and add those to the tracking information.

The main application according to the developers is to recover a stolen notebook. The main problem with this kind of software based tracking is that it might help against a normal thief who keeps the notebook as his own and does not completely wipe the hard disks before using it. A clever thief would problem do that and install another operating system to start over. Some thieves may fire up the computer at least once to check for data like credit card information that they can take advantage of.

I guess some users will find different uses for this kind of software, like tracking their children, wifes, girlfriends, husbands to see what they are doing. Please note that you may end up with legal troubles if you are using the software for unlawful or unethical activities.

It displays a radar like image with different colors dots. Green dots mark free wireless connections while red and yellow ones mark inaccessible ones. Once a green spot has been discovered by the software it automatically tries to connect to that Wireless access point to access the Internet.

It’s opening the default browser and loading a test website. A message stating the success will be shown if the connection was successful. It is really amazing how easy it is to find open wireless access points in towns. Should be harder if you are living in a rural area though.

I would not advise to check the mail from such a spot though unless encryption is being used. It’s not likely but possible that someone is using the open access point to snoop on the data of everyone who is connecting to it. Easy WiFi radar is available for Windows and Pocket PCs.

Locate PC only works if the thief is stupid enough to boot your computer while being connected to an internet connection. I cannot really say how many thiefs would do that but it can happen and that’s probably reason enough to use Locate PC. A slim chance is better than no chance at all, don’t you think ?

Locate PC (via Cybernet News) will send emails periodically whenever the PC is connected to the Internet, by default one email is send per day and another one for every IP change. The application is running in the background with an obscured filename and no system tray icon making it harder to identify. I would say that you do not need to worry about that though, if the thief really boots the PC while it is connected to the Internet then you should not fear that he will discover the little tracking application.

One thing that actually might work pretty well is to create a bogus account that does not require a password. I mean, a thief that gets a password prompt will probably not be able to load the operating system which would make the whole configuration void.

The emails that are send contain several interesting information, not only the IP that it is being send from. It displays the computer’s host name and logged in user. This will be probably your information though. More interesting are the network connections that are listed. A dialup connection would reveal the phone number and the user name which can lead directly to the thief.

A traceroute command is issued as well and identifying information are pulled from Windows. The important information that can lead to the thief are the IP address, the network connections and the traceroute command. Everything else will be your information unless the thief decides to chance the name and address of the owner to his own.

They were able to compare the Asus Eee PC models 701 and 900 in white and the 701 in black. Both white models are using the same keyboard while the black keyboard looks and feels different and the assumption can be made that the black 900 model will have the same keyboard as the black 701 model.

The first obvious difference becomes obvious when you place the black and white keyboards next to each other. The black keys seem to be a bit smaller and use a wider spacing than the white ones. They also go deeper which means that the user will receive more feedback from the keyboard in comparison to the white keyboard.

The texture of the black keyboard uses rougher plastic which makes it easier to grip. I have not tested it myself but it looks like the difference between a notebook keyboard and a usual desktop pc keyboard at first glance. Maybe the difference are not that big but the comparison seems valid.

It’s still strange that Asus would create different keyboards for different colored models and the reviewer at Laptop Mag came to the conclusion that this may be caused by the manufacturing process and not by design itself.

If you purchase a new notebook – and it does not really matter from which manufacturer you make the purchase – you notice lots of software, many call it crapware, that is preinstalled on that notebook. You get demo or trial versions of software, lots of unnecessary applications from the manufacturer and much more that slow down the computer. Many companies love to add a Norton or Symantec trial to the computer for instance.

Sony obviously thought that some customers would like the crapware removed but instead of offering this as a configuration option that is free of charge they charge $50 for it. Yes that is right. Those who add the crapware ask the customer to pay $50 for its removal. That’s a nice business model don’t you think ?

If you feel desperate you could try to use the software PC Decrapifier instead which removes quite a few applications that are usually installed on new notebooks and computers.

Reports are all over the Internet (here, here or here for instance) and from the date of the news we can see that it is not really a “new” problem but one that exists for several years. If you own a Sony laptop and want to buy a separate battery you have to pay roughly three to four times the price if you buy a original Sony battery instead of a generic one.

If you make the decision to buy the generic battery you might be in for a nasty surprise. Sony is not allowing generic batteries in many of their notebooks by using software and hardware protections. The software protection is simply a file called ISBMgr.exe which prevents the usage of another battery not manufactured by Sony. Some users were able to use the battery by removing that program from their computer. (ISBMgr.exe is apparently run at system startup, use msconfig or autoruns to disable it.)

One user described the error message that he received when he booted his Sony notebook with the generic battery:

I got an error message saying the battery either wasn’t properly inserted or wasn’t a genuine Sony, and that the notebook would go into hibernation and the battery must be removed

The hardware protection on the other hand cannot be disabled which means that if you have a notebook with that hardware protection you will not be able to use a generic battery. The It’s a Sony slogan becomes a whole new meaning, don’t you think ?

Battery Run is a little command line utility that checks if a power cable is connected. Once it gets disconnected it starts a user defined action and another one when the cable gets connected again. You could for instance play a sound if the power cable gets disconnected to notify you or a software that would reduce power consumption.

Usage is straightforward. Download and unpack the file on your hard drive. Use the command batteryrun load-program-when-disconnected load-program-when connected. For example: batteryrun disconnected.wav connected.wav

Batteryrun will play the disconnected.wav file when the power cable gets disconnected and the connected.wav file when it gets connected again. A icon should appear in the system tray if everything was setup correctly.

The Wlan – Network Card example was just one possibility. Many notebooks have a card reader, DVD drive, webcams and V.90 Modems among other components. My notebook for example offers both Wlan and LAN access and I have disabled the network card which had the positive side effect that it reduced the boot time of my notebook.

I disabled the card reader and the internal modem as well because I never use those components. The DVD drive is disabled as well most of the time because I rarely use it. I don’t have the necessary test equipment to test the battery usage before and after disabling the components but I can verify that the boot process into Windows is faster than before.

A friend of mine told me about the Asus EEE PC which is a subnotebook with an 7 inch screen, a 900 Mhz Intel Celeron M cpu, 512 Megabyte of Ram and a 4 Gigabyte Solid State Disk. This is not a notebook that you can use to play games or big applications but it could be ideal for my situation for several reasons.

It comes with a keyboard which is definitely a plus over those PDAs that I looked at. Sure there are external keyboards for those PDAs but it would mean that I would have to carry that around as well. A 7 inch screen is much nicer than the screens that the PDAs use.

Another advantage of the Asus EEE PC is the price of €299 and the Linux operating system. Future versions will also see Windows XP as the operating system of choice. The EEE PC boots Linux in 15 seconds which can be attributed to the Solid State Disk drive.

The RAM can be pumped up to a total of 2 Gigabytes of RAM and another Solid State Disk can be added to the Asus EEE PC as well. What I do not like that much is that the battery will not last for more than 3.5 hours according to Asus.

Reviews of the Asus EEE PC complained about the tiny keyboard and the low res display as well. I guess I have to test on before I make a decision. The biggest turnback is the battery power of the EEE PC though.

This surely sounds nice because it increases user-friendliness. Most users do not like passwords at all because they have to memorize them to make them effective. With face recognition this would not be a problem anymore because they would only have to smile into the webcam to start the operating system of their notebook.

It remains to be seen how secure the system is. It would not be a great system if someone would for instance get access by using a high quality picture of the person who uses his face to access the notebook. I don’t think that this technology will become mainstream one day.

The NEC Lavie C Series will come out this September in Japan. Notebook stats for the top range model are 1 Gigabyte of Ram, Core Duo 2 T7500 processor, Blue-Ray Read-only drive, a 160 Gigabyte hybrid hard drive (256 MB flash memory) and a 15.4″ LCD screen with WXGA+.