desktop
HP Pavilion Elite Desktop PCs Announced (CES 2010)
January 6, 2010
As per usual, we’re spoilt for choice at this year’s CES for computing and technology goodness, and HP’s getting in on the fun with the release of desktops, laptops, netbooks and a new TouchSmart to follow! The newly released desktops are Pavilion Elite desktops, imaginatively named the 110f, 120f, 130f and 170f…
HP Pavilion Elite 110f
Starting from the bottom, the 110f comes packed full of goodness with an AMD Phenom 925 Quad-Core Processor clocked at 2.80GHz and 8GB DDR3 RAM. Couple this with a 1TB hard drive, a DVD burner with LightScribe capability and ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics giving you 512MB graphics memory and you’ve got one hell of a machine!
Considering that the 110f is the base model in these four new desktops, it looks like we’ve got a lot to look forward to. Pricing hasn’t yet been announced, but here’s to hoping it’s reasonable… The machine will also come with Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) out of the box.
Continue reading »5 Christmas Gadget Present / Gift Ideas For Dad (2009)
November 16, 2009
Over the next few days I will list a number of the best Christmas gadgets you can give to your family. First up is dad. Whether you’re a wife, son or daughter these are great gifts for the father of your household. If you’re struggling ideas this year check out these men’s gadgets and gizmos.
Maggie Thatcher Nut Cracker
A blast from the past. For just under £10 from Firebox.com you can grab an actual nut cracker in the form of none other than Margaret Thatcher. It features her everlasting good looks, obviously. As well as her typical complete blue outfit. It even comes in a special Number 10 box. So what do you think? Would your father like to have an 80’s Tory PM crack walnuts between her thighs this Christmas?
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 3: Security
October 21, 2009
Ah, User Account Control – arguably the most irritating feature of Windows Vista. Sure you had the option to turn it off somewhere deep in the control panel, but then you had a balloon demanding your attention in the bottom corner of the screen telling you to ‘Check your security settings’. When Vista was in development, Microsoft made a point about security, but the answer wasn’t exactly great. So what’s changed in Windows 7?
For starters, UAC is still here, but it’s more subtle than it was in Vista, as you have the option to choose between 4 levels of notification: Always notify when programs install software, make changes to your computer or if you change Windows settings (Vista…); the default option which is the same as the top level apart from not notifying you when you change Windows settings; the third level, which is the same as the default settings, except it doesn’t dim the screen when UAC appears and the fourth level, which doesn’t notify you at all. Unlike in Vista, there aren’t any annoying balloons demanding your attention on the quick launch bar when you turn UAC off either.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 2: Aero Features
October 20, 2009
Aero made its debut in Windows Vista with translucent windows, a newly designed taskbar and quite a bit of eye candy. Despite this, it never really added much functionality to the OS and to me it was more of a gimmick than a useful feature, although I did find myself using Aero Flip quite often. In Windows 7, however, it makes quite a few advancements with new features and improvements over old features.
I already wrote a little on some of the new Aero features in part one of the Windows 7 review, talking about features such as Aero Peek which is integrated into the new taskbar. In addition to Peek, there are two more key additions on the Aero scene named ‘Snap’ and ‘Shake’.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 1: The New Taskbar
October 19, 2009
Rightly or wrongly, Vista has been hated by the majority since its release in 2007. The taskbar didn’t add any extra functionality compared to Windows XP, and needed a lot of resources for Aero. Cue Windows 7… Well, Aero is still there, but it’s got a purpose as well as a taskbar that adds functionality compared to XP and Vista.
The new taskbar is probably one of the first things you’ll notice if you’re looking at Windows 7 for the first time, as it’s distinctly thicker than the taskbar in Vista and comes with some quite nice features. For those of you in to eye candy, the Windows ‘Orb’ glows whenever you hover over it with your mouse, almost like a child trying to get the attention of its parent. When I first started using Windows 7 it got on my nerves a bit, but you get used to it over time and it doesn’t constantly demand your attention, so no worries there!
Continue reading »BumpTop Review (3D Desktop Application)
October 7, 2009
Look at a picture of a Windows 95 desktop and a Windows 7 desktop. What’s changed? You may say they look entirely different with flashy themes and an orb in place of the old beige taskbar and start button, but when you see past the themes and modern graphics, you’re left with the same file management system on your desktop that you were using almost 15 years ago! The minimum system requirements for Windows 95 included a whopping 4MB of memory, 50MB of HDD space and a 386DX processor, which could be clocked up to an incredible 40MHz. See where I’m going with this? Needless to say, hardware’s advancing at such a rate, yet we’re still using a 2D desktop with limited functionality.
Tweetdeck v0.25b Update – Facebook Functionality!
April 9, 2009
Nicely timed to coincide with an announcement from Seesmic’s founder Loic Le Meur that they’ll be launching a desktop Twitter app, Tweetdeck have updated their offering. The new v0.25b version of Tweetdeck was made available at 5pm GMT on Thursday with a whole host of new features which look to, at least until Seesmic rolls out, confirm the platform as the premier Twitter desktop app.
Sluggish Firefox
March 27, 2007
One of the best things about Firefox in my opinion is all the different “extensions” you can install into it to add additional functionality. However, over the past month or so I’ve been experiencing a very frustrating time using Firefox – the whole program seemed to be running on a general go-slow.
I’d have problems with just simple things like typing something and then waiting a few seconds for it to catch up with me. Add into that, regular freezing and very slow scrolling through my tabs, it’s really been annoying the hell out of me.
I’d reduced some of the large number of extensions I had installed, but to no avail. I’d been looking at potential background processes which could be sucking up resources and choosing to un-install some, however this didn’t resolve matters neither.
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