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|  | How to Replace a Power Supply (and buy a good one)
Monday, April 09, 2007
"Once upon a time there lived a PC who killed video cards. He was a nice, quiet PC, middle aged and had always performed his duties well. At some point he changed though. He went through several video cards without regard to brand or price and eventually a lengthy investigation uncovered the defect in him responsible. It was his power supply. This guide shows you how to replace your power supply and what factors to look for when buying.." Excellent stuff. A PSU can be the unsuspecting cause of many PC faults. Read the guide at Technibble.com. |   |
| | How far we've come already
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Hugo Ortega has been experimenting with his digital video recorder's remote control again, this time filming himself taking a trip down memory lane to show the shrinking size of motherboards and RAM that has allowed the creation of UMPCs. Actually that's not really an accurate way to describe it. It's not a trip down memory lane, it's rather a fork in the road. All of the different internal hardware that Hugo shows in his video are still in production for different market segments.The second half of the video takes a look at a new type of touch screen that takes its input from sonic waves instead of actual touch. Interesting stuff. Watch the video now on ubertablet.blogspot.com. | |
| | | UMPCs can replace your current desktop (with a dock of course)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
CNNMoney.com no doubt have the perfect reader base that fits in with the market that current generation UMPC manufacturers are often aiming their marketing at: busy professionals on a high salary who travel a lot. CNNMoney.com readers have received some computing advice today: "They fit in the palm of your hand, weigh 2 pounds or less, and pack enough power to run full versions of Windows Vista and other applications--unlike the scaled-down versions used in smartphones. We've tested the best ultramobile PCs (UMPCs) on the market, and while these newly released models aren't cheap, they're each robust enough to be the only desktop you'll ever need." That must be music to the ears of UMPC manufacturers. | |
| Two new products with Intel CPUs but VIA chipsets
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
ElectronicsTalk.com reports that DSM Computer is now manufacturing a P3 Panel System that features the VIA CLE266 chipset. "The P3 Panel System is supplied in a rugged, high-quality industrial housing with VESA screw connection or as a modular packaging system. The powder-coated front trim panel made of 2mm steel plate or 4mm aluminum can be supplied in customer-specific colours. As an option, the IPC can be ordered with an aluminum front that conforms with the IP65 degree of protection."Over in a totally different market segment, Engadget.com has news of a new budget laptop from Sager. "Packing a 15.4-inch widescreen display as standard, you can configure the system with your choice of Celeron M or Core 2 Duo processors, along with up to 2GB of RAM, a max 200GB hard drive, VIA Chrome 9HC graphics, a built-in webcam, and either a CD-RW or DVD burner. While maxing things out will up the price considerably, opting for the minium configuration will let you take one of these homes for as little as $599." Sweet! | |
| Too much tweaking can kill your PC
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
I recently had a family member bring a PC around that he needed some assistance with. Their desktop was set to 8 bit colors and reinstalling video card drivers (etc) didn't seem to do anything. It was actually a PC I built for him 5 years ago using a VIA P4M266 chipset board produced under VIA's own P4 brand name. This family member is an up and coming PC enthusiast. He must be in his mid-50s at least but he buys the latest computer magazines and had been talking to people online about how to improve the performance of his PC. It's always good to try new things and experiment with your PC (after all that's how you learn) but what had actually killed his computer was one of the many tweak programs he had installed from the CD that he got free with a magazine. Most of these programs by themselves are OK but two things can cause major issues when you use these registry editing programs. One is that they might conflict with each other. The other problem is that some of them are only given for trial periods but after the trial period expires you can't undo the changes you make. This was the case with one of the programs this family member had installed. Short of totaling rebuilding the registry, the easiest solution was to do a reinstall of Windows. He was amazed at how fast his system was after the fresh reinstall. Cluttering your system with tweak programs can actually slow it down - especially if all the little programs have to start on Startup and then run in the background taking up memory or CPU resources. One of then best tweaks is a simple system clean up. | |
| All Samsung Q1 models now available in Australia
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
There are four Samsung Q1 UMPC models. Until recently in Australia you could only get two models and neither of them was the Q1b with VIA's processor. Tegatech Australia has just sent word that this travesty has been rectified at last! The VIA based Q1b offers the best battery life of all four UMPCs in the Samsung range - 5 hours with a 3 cell battery. I had the pleasure of using what was (so far as I know) the only Q1b in the country, when Tegatech last month lent me their sample. It was a lovely piece of equipment to use. | |
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| Most recent blog entries |  |
| | | Update in Process | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onThursday, August 21, 2008 2:13 PM | |
| So, there’s a new iPhone update out there. The first thing I did this morning was plug in my iPhone to sync it with iTunes and get the latest update, hoping it would fix some of the crash Apple screens ... |  | | Comments (0) | More... |
| | @Me dot com | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onTuesday, August 19, 2008 9:34 AM | |
| iTunes has advertised the Apple @Me service to me a couple of times, so I thought I’d give it a spin. If you don’t know what @Me is, it’s iTune or Apple’s solution to Gmail but it’s meant to have more ... | | | Comments (0) | More... |
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| | Updating my iPhone | | John Gatt's Babblings
| By John Gatt onTuesday, August 12, 2008 11:39 AM | |
| iPhone 2.0.1 software update is now available from iTunes. This 249.2MB update was released to fix numerous issues that have been plaguing the release of the 3G iPhone. I personally have found the iPhone to be less stable than your average V ... | | | Comments (0) | More... |
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