Friday, March 25, 2011

Asus Launches Eee Pad Transformer Tablet with Keyboard Dock

Well, this looks interesting! I wonder what the price will be locally. This comes from MaximumPC.com.

Asus is calling its new Eee Pad Transformer "an innovative tablet with an expandable keyboard dock," but could this also be the netbook evolved? A physical keyboard isn't something that comes with any other major tablet, however it sits front and center on the Eee Pad Transformer, when you want it to. When you don't, simply detach the head and you're rocking a portable tablet PC with up to 9.5 hours of battery life (up to 16 hours with the dock).

Let's take a look at the feature-set. The Eee Pad Transformer sports a 10.1-inch IPS panel with LED backlighting (1280x800 resolution), 10 finger multi-touch support, scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass, Nvidia's Tegra 2 chip, 1GB of memory, 16GB/32GB of storage plus unlimited Asus WebStorage, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 1.2MP front-facing camera, 5MP rear-facing camera with auto focus, microSD card slot, internal microphone, headphone and mic jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, GPS, and an optional 3G radio.

All this comes wrapped in Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform with Asus' Waveshare UI. By all means, Asus has come out swinging. Looking at the spec sheet alone, the Eee Pad Transformer is portable, it's powerful, and it transforms into a netbook on the fly.

Asus said the first shipments are already underway, but didn't reveal a price or release date. Bummer.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Avoid Japan disaster relief scams - & many others!

If you receive e-mails soliciting funds for Japan disaster relief, be very wary. The best way to donate is to go directly to the web site of reputable organizations, and to key in their address in your browser's address bar yourself. Don't rely on links, especially those embedded in soliciting e-mails. There is much scamming going on through fake websites that are created to look just like those of reputable organizations.

There is an excellent web site that will give you additional detail on all that is going on in this, and other, matters. It is called ScamWarners. Once at the home page (address below), check out their FORUM by clicking on their FORUM link.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

More on Skype

If you are not yet a Skype user and would like to learn more, Kim Kmando has a nice writeup here:

Free video calls with the whole family

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

SKYPE

Late to the game I admit, but I have quickly become a big fan of Skype. Most laptops today have a built-in video camera, so making video calls is a piece of cake. Not surprisingly I guess, based on the popularity of Skype, many others already have Skype userids and conducting video calls with them is really easy. Also, even if you don't have a video camera, you can use Skype to make free voice calls if you are calling someone else using Skype (internet user to internet user). So many of my customers have told me that they use Skype to talk to relatives overseas. It saves a ton f money if one has a son or daughter in the military in the Middle East or elsewhere, or perhaps a relative living overseas for other reasons.

The Skype program is free and very easy to download and install.

Write me if you have any questions.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1

Or W7/SP1 for short, if I may.

My W7 laptop, an Acer, is not heavily used and contains little data. I have known that SP1 has been available for some time, but I had read some bad things about it. However, at this time and since I have little to risk, I thought I would give it a try.

I didn't pay particular attention to the download and installation process, but it went smoothly and I'd say it took about an hour overall. There were no errors in the entire process, and when I finally rebooted when it was completed, the system came up just fine. No issues. No problems.

If you want to install SP1 on your W7 machine, I urge you to backup all of your data beforehand, and, as always, you should have an understanding of how you would reinstall the operating system if necessary.

While doing this I noticed that my machine has only 2GB of RAM. This was sufficient when W7 first came out, but the best minds nowadays recommend 4GB as a minimum for W7. While not one of the best minds, I nonetheless encourage you to upgrade to 4GB if you are still sitting with 2GB or less.

I learned in this process that my machine can be upgraded to 4GB. I really never explored that before, but nowadays you can get 2GB on one memory module, so I can install 2 of these, if I choose to spend $68, for a total of 4GB.



The Crucial Memory Tool is a good way to check on the RAM capabilities of your system (crucial.com)



You can click on those pictures for a larger size for easier viewing.