Phoenix have developed a new technology that they call Phoenix Instant Boot. The new technology cuts down the time it takes for the Bios to initialize everything to one second. This is achieved by loading devices and processes that are needed to load the operating system simultaneously. Take a look at the following video that has been posted to Youtube that showcases the boot time.

The notebook used in the demonstration video was powered by a high-performance solid state disk. It took about ten seconds to boot into Windows 7. While boot time is definitely not the only thing that counts it is nice to see some progress in this area. It is even possible, according to Phoenix, that some hardware manufacturers will offer Bios upgrades that incorporate the technology.

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The web browsers of the test were: Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5.2 with and without adblock add-on, Google Chrome 2, Opera 9.64, 10.0b3 and Safari 4. Three laptops were used in the test. Two entry level Gateway laptops with AMD and Intel cpus and the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA netbook.

Gateway NV52

Gateway NV58

Asus EEE PC 1005HA

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is the web browser that drains the least amount of battery on the two entry level laptops. Most other web browsers with the exception of Safari come close to that results, especially Firefox with the adblock add-on. The benefit of the adblock add-on suggests that web advertisement does have an impact on battery usage. Safari 4 is the only web browser in the test that performed worst in all three tests.

Google Chrome 2 was first in the netbook test with all other web browsers close by except for Safari which completely drained the battery of the netbook more than two hours earlier than the other web browsers.

Even if the test needs to be replicated with a larger website sample size it seems to indicate that laptop users are better off without the Safari web browser. Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox with adblock and Google Chrome were the best performing web browsers in the test.

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As the name suggest the Disney Netpal is a netbook designed specifically for children. According to Disney, the age range is between 6-12 years-old. The Netpal features an 8.9-inch LCD display, WiFi capabilities and Window’s XP Home “with over 40 parental control options.”

Since this is a netbook marketed to kids Disney took special note of durability. The device not only features a spill proof keyboard, but also ASUS ShockShield data protection which prevents loss of data should the device experience sudden shock such as a fall.

On the design front, the netbook boasts two color choices, “Princess Pink” for the ladies err girls and Magic Blue for the boys which also features “miniature Mickey Mouse icons (the former carries “beautiful pink florals”).

But what makes this little netbook shine is the work Disney has placed under the hood, geared to kids and parents alike. The Netpal features 10 customizable themes derived from popular Disney and Disney/Pixar franchises. These include, Cars, Club Penguin, Disney Classic Characters, Disney Fairies, Disney Princess, Vintage Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, WALL-E, Jonas Brothers and you guessed it Hanna Montana (where’s Lizzie McGuire?) Children will be able to use icons from these themes as email attachments such as signatures.

But Disney has gone even further with the inclusion of software built specifically for the Netpal. An example of this is the Disney Mix which, as the name suggest, is used for music and media management. There is also Disney Pix for photo customization/organization. One of the features of this application is the ability for kids to insert pictures of their faces into Bobblehead software. Another feature (via the Disney Radio Widget) allows children to stream real time music from Disney Radio as well as submit requests for songs. There are also a number of games included (racing, memory, scrapbook etc.)

So far everything that we just covered are things appealing to the kids, for the parents there are (as we mentioned earlier) over 40 control options so parents can protect their children as well as allow limited access to certain things.. For example a parent can pre-select email correspondences, determine which websites their children can visit, as well as a scheduling option so certain features can be automated such as the time of day the child is allowed to go online or play a game etc. And more importantly parents will be able to see not only what their children were doing on the computer but how long they spent.
All in all, this sounds like a perfect idea. While I do not have kids of my own, I have quite a few friends who would be interested in something like this for their son/daughter, and with a starting price of $350 this sounds pretty reasonable. As for a release date, that is set sometime in July

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Laptop security can be increased by installing a small application on the system that checks if the laptop is connected to an A/C adapter. Laptop alarm will play a sound as soon as the laptop gets removed from the power supply.

It has to be noted that this method of protecting a laptop is far from perfect. It would for example be possible to close the lid of the laptop to avoid the alarm going off. Alarm comes as a portable executable or installer and has to be configure with a sound file. An alarm mp3 file is provided by the developer of the software program.

Other options are running a Python script that makes use of a laptops accelerometer to detect someone moving it. All of these methods are not fool proof but add a new layer of security that could prove to be very effective especially if the laptop thief does not power down the laptop immediately.

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BattCursor adds another battery monitoring possibility for computer systems running the Windows Vista operating system. The free software program displays the remaining battery power next to the mouse cursor so that it is always in sight.

The colors of the mouse cursor change at thresholds to inform the user about the battery status. A red cursor for instance indicates a low battery while a green cursor indicates that lots of battery power is remaining.

Battcursor requires the Microsoft Windows operating system and the .net Framework 2.0 or higher. It comes with a few additional settings that can extend the battery life of the laptop further. This includes dimming the computer display or turning of Aero.

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The laptop theft recovery software Prey tries to increase the chances by collecting and sending a bunch of information over the Internet. It obviously does not help if the thief is clever enough to format the laptop before using it. If the thief boots the operating system and connects the laptop to the Internet then Prey will be able to submit the data.

Prey works by checking an url regularly for existence. If the url exists it will send out the collected data to a specified email account. The date includes:

This includes the general status of the computer, a list of running programs and active connections, fully-detailed network and wifi information, a screenshot of the running desktop and — in case your laptop has an integrated webcam — a picture of the thief

About the url that has to be created. The laptop theft recovery program has been designed that way to avoid data being send out continuously by the software. Users can for example sign up at a free web hosting service such as Blogger to create the url that the software program checks (for Ghacks it could for example be http://www.ghacks.net/stolen/).

The user needs to specify login data to a s SMTP server so that the data can be transferred. The laptop theft recovery software Prey is available for the Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating system. The Linux and Mac version are currently more advanced and come with a bi-lingual interface, automatic connection to the first open Wi-Fi network.

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It is possible to write a simple batch script that can turn computer hardware off. Might be a handy for users who connect their mobile computer to a power source and use it on the road as well. They would simply turn off the unnecessary computer hardware on the road and turn it on again once it is connected to a power source again.

The creation does not require programming skills but you need to know a bit about the computer hardware installed on your system. Not all hardware should be disabled, possibilities include

• Audio Devices
• Network Adapters
• Wireless Networking Adapters
• CD, DVD and Blu-Ray drives
• Floppy drives
• webcams, card readers and other peripherals

You need three commands to work with devcon.

• devcon find
• devcon disable
• devcon enable

Start by downloading devcon from the official Microsoft website. Unpack it to a directory of your choice. It might be a good idea to put it into a directory that is listed in the system path of the operating system, e.g. /system32.

Open the Windows command line with [Windows R], [cmd], [enter].

Enter devcon find * to get a listing of all hardware devices. This can be a long list, you can use the following command to find a specific device (the command is case sensitive):

devcon find * | find "computer hardware identifier"

To find all Creative devices one could enter

devcon find * | find "Creative"

The device in the screenshot above would be the Creative Soundblaster X-FI sound card. To disable that sound card one would use the following command

devcon disable PCI\VEN_1102

It is enough to add the unique identifier for the hardware device. Here are some tips to make the most out of the find command:

Find all PCI devices

devcon find * | find "PCI"

Find all USB devices

devcon find * | find "USB"

All that needs to be done now is to collect the unique identifiers for all computer hardware devices that should be turned off at times.

Create a new text document on the computer, name it disable.bat. Right-click it, select edit and add as many devcon disable lines to it as you want.

devcon disable PCI\VEN_1102
devcon disable PCI\VEN_1317
devcon disable USB\VID_1532

Now create a second batch file, name it enable.bat and use the following code (you basically exchange disable with enable)

devcon enable PCI\VEN_1102
devcon enable PCI\VEN_1317
devcon enable USB\VID_1532

That’s a basic script. You could add echo commands to it, combine the two scripts into one and beatify it further. The basic script on the other hand does what it is supposed to do.

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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.

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These things seem to happen regularly and it is not only laptops that are affected by this. We have seen malware on appear virtually anywhere where it can appear in the last years, even on music CDs from a well known company. This leads to the interesting question on what users can do to ensure that their computer system is not already infected by malicious software.

Security companies advise to scan a newly purchased computer system thoroughly before starting to work with it. They also suggest to stay offline during the procedure which can sometimes be problematic if the computer system is the only available at hand. The virus definition files of antivirus software that is already installed on the computer system is usually outdated and might not catch the virus. The same is true for antivirus software that is purchased in stores.

Security experts therefor suggest to download the virus definitions for the antivirus program from a different computer with Internet access. That’s problematic if there is only one computer system available. Solutions for this might be to visit friends, go to an Internet Cafe or computer shop to download it from there.

Which leads to the question: What do you do after buying a new computer system?

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It will add four keyboard shortcuts to the computer system that can be used to rotate the monitor screen. The shortcuts begin with [Ctrl ALT] and require one of the arrow keys to be pressed as well. [Ctrl Alt Up Arrow] returns the screen to the initial position while [Ctrl Alt Right Arrow] rotates it by 270 degrees. [Ctrl Alt Down Arrow] rotates it 180 degrees and [Ctrl Alt Left] by 90 degrees.

One interesting additional feature is that the software will also rotate the input device to match the screen rotation. The portable software EEE Rotate worked fine on a Windows XP SP3 test system but the executable had to be extracted (can be done with 7-zip for example) as the setup would throw an error message otherwise.

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However, my new laptop has Vista, of which I downloaded a copy, installed it, and found that my key doesn’t work. While the label on my old laptop just says Windows XP, this one says Windows Vista Home Premium OEMact, so I guess this is the problem. The first question here is, does any of you know how to legally get a working version of Vista which is not full of unneeded things?

The second questions is, do you guys use the OS installs provided by the laptop maker? I find that there is a lot of ‘everythingware” in these systems from tiny vendor specific utilities, to large pre-installed vendor stuff, trial apps like virus scanners, Office products, and just boatloads of stuff I will never-ever need. For basic users, or for people who just don’t care this may be ok, what do you think, do you use your pre-installed OS?

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One of the bet ways to save battery is by reducing the power of several core components such as the processor or graphic adapters.

Notebook Hardware Control is a free software program that has been designed to take care of the needs of notebook users. Power management is however only one – very extensive – option of the software.

The software comes preinstalled with several hardware profiles like max. battery, dynamic switching or battery optimized. These profiles can be easily set by right-clicking the icon in the System Tray.

The maximum battery setting can for example be used to use the notebook for as long as possible while dynamic switching ensures that battery life will be saved as long as the system does not need additional power.

It is also possible to customize those settings further by defining multipliers and voltage settings manually.

Next to that are similar options for the video card and hard disk. The hard disk settings go further by providing access to advanced power management and acoustic management settings. An Advanced Configuration and Power Interface system can be enabled as well.

Notebook Hardware Control is a software program that is compatible with 32-bit editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 or higher.

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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.

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The small laptop weights 1.1 kilograms and comes equipped with 512 Megabytes of RAM, a 900 Mhz 64-bit Longsoon CPU, 3 USB ports, a SD-HC port, Wlan, Ethernet connections, speakers, microphone, webcam and a touchpad.

In case you might be wondering why I have not mentioned a hard drive: It does not come with one. It makes use of a 4-16 Gigabyte USB stick instead which comes preinstalled with Mandravia Linux and Open-Source software like Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office.

Small Laptop

That’s an interesting concept but rather problematic because you can’t do anything if you forget the USB stick. The Longsoon cpu requires some explanation as well. That’s a cpu that is manufactured in China and I was not able to come up with any benchmark comparison charts.

Small Laptop Doubts

While the small laptop might introduce some interesting features it surely does have a few limitations especially that it does not come with a hard drive but makes use of an usb stick only that contains the operating system.

This adds to the security of the small laptop but it also raises a few questions about operating system performance. USB Sticks are slower than hard drives and flash drives usually and it would be interesting to see how this affects performance of the whole small laptop.

The small laptop will be available in white, pink and black at the beginning of September for a suggested retail price of roughly $400.

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Those information would then be compiled, encrypted and the OpenDHT distributed storage service is used to store location update of the notebook. Those 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.

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.

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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.

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While the latter can be countered by locking the account the first fear can’t. A notebook can always be grabbed and taken away if you are not near it. Laptop Alarm tries to counter this by sounding an alarm whenever one of the following things happen:

• A/C Power Removal
• Mouse Removal
• Mouse Movement
• Shutdown / Suspend

This is of course not a perfect solution but it does give everyone near it a audible sign that something is wrong. If you are within hearing range you can react fast and rush to the place where you left your notebook.

Thieves will probably be disturbed by the sound and leave without taking the notebook. Laptop Alarm does not only play a sound but locks the laptop with a password as well. That means that a intruder has only the option to either enter the password, close the notebook or remove the A/C Power. If he moves the mouse doing so the alarm will go off.

The only difficulty that I see is that it does not go off if the notebook is closed first. Closing the notebook does not trigger the alarm at all. The notebook is still protected by the password of Laptop Alarm when opened again but you don’t get the alarm when needed.

I would say it is probably okay to run it as another measure to protect your notebook but it is not a perfect solution either. I prefer to be on the safe side and never leave my notebook out of sight.

Read More:

Laptop Alarm

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Just download and unzip Battery Eater Pro to your hard drive. A great thing about the software is that it does not need installation, so no tampering with your system at all. Once you started Battery Eater Pro it will wait until the battery is fully loaded. Once this is done you can start the test by pressing SHIFT + F3. (disconnect the power plug before you do that)

The test will run until the notebook runs out of power and powers off. Connect the notebook to a power source and Battery Eater Pro will load automatically at startup and display test results. The test results will show accurate information which might differ from the figures of the manufacturer.

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He (the buyer) found lots of pictures (gay, fetish, london bombing, 9/11, amir topless) as well as bank account details, passport and driving license scans. He thought that a good payback would be to publish the embarassing material on a website with his story. The site has more than 300 comments already and will make it on digg.com homepage in just a few hours.

If you happen to read the comments you will notice that a lot of people are offering help to either post the embarrasing stuff elsewhere (usenet in gay groups for instance) or try to convince Amir (who seems to be posting to the website with fake nicks) to give back the money. What do we learn from this little episode ? Never **** with an angry internet community. Oh, and use a good hard drive eraser before you sell your computer.

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You normally get no warranty whatsoever unless you purchase it from an merchant who sells his goods at eBay. This may be a disadvantage to some but it could also be seen as an advantage. Not many people would open up the notebook and take a look inside to maybe replace parts if there is still warranty on the notebook. For example if you purchase a used one that has a hard drive with 20 gigabytes of space you could try and replace it with a bigger one.

The guys from notebookreview.com put an article online that gives you valuable hints for purchasing a Notebook on eBay (and other online marketplaces).

They put up a checklist of questions that you should ask the seller before you bid or make the purchase. Most will be hopefully explained in the items description, everything that is not should be asked.

Get deals on select Lenovo Notebooks, Desktops and accessories at the Lenovo Rebate Center

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