posted on June 29, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
HP joined the netbook craze after it saw the market potential for the tiny devices (something Acer has used to propel itself toward the number 2 spot amongst computer OEMs). This one carries less of a netbook-y feel and more of a business-y feel than other typical netbooks, which might help HP reach an audience slightly more concerned about aesthetics than the typical netbook buyer. Things to note:
- It runs Vista, which is great. Thing is, I’m unsure as to whether it runs Windows Vista smoothly enough under load thanks to the chipset being used. This is one of those netbooks which might be a better grab once it’s loaded with Windows 7 thanks to 7’s performance and power usage optimizations.
- The keyboard is spill-resistant (there’s a difference between this and spill-proof), which means that it can likely withstand an accidental coffee or coke spill without problems. Your best bet would be to dry it off quickly.
- Build quality is excellent, and the tool-less design (with switching ram, anyway) is definitely a plus. The only catch is that I can’t think of too many instances where a user would want to upgrade ram on a netbook.
There are two separate add-ons which I also take a look at in this video; one of which is a USB expander that adds extra USB ports, dedicated headphone/mic jacks, as well as a NIC. It’s not a complete docking solution, but it should serve perfectly fine for people who just want to plug one USB cable into their netbook at work as opposed to setting it on a dock. The other is just an external optical drive, which might (again) only really be a necessity in the office.
As with the last video, you can catch this hands-on video after the jump in both vanilla YouTube and YouTube HD.
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posted on June 26, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
NVIDIA’s first ION-based netbook went on sale a few days ago (the Lenovo S12, seen above and in the video), and I managed to get a good run-down of the thing as well as with OCZ’s as-yet-unreleased ION netbook. Things to note:
- ION is essentially a GeForce 9400m repackaged for netbook use, so the same graphical abilities seen in lower end MacBook Pros are also available with netbooks running ION.
- Because there’s a CUDA-enabled 9400m GPU, other CUDA-accelerated tasks can also be run on these netbooks, such as video encoding. The video demonstrates this.
- As can be seen in the video and in the above screencap, Windows 7 runs on these netbooks just fine, which makes sense given that there’s a pretty decent GPU sitting inside these things.
You can catch the video demonstrating 1080p video from the netbooks (as well as other tasks) after the jump in both vanilla YouTube and YouTube HD.
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posted on June 25, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
Update: Please, if you’re going to copy my images, don’t delete the watermark. I went through effort to get these pictures, and having them torn off (as is the case with ArsTechnica’s recent linkback)just means that I’ll have to present unsightly watermarks over the entire picture next time as opposed to keeping the images presentable by leaving the watermark in the corner. Update 2: ArsTechnica corrected their image accordingly. Thanks!
Just about everyone has seen the shots of the new Windows 7 retail packaging, but pictures of the new Anytime Upgrade packaging are much harder to come by. Impossible to find are any current examples of the packaging besides press shots and renders, so having said that, here are a few good hands-on shots I managed to take. For those wondering, yes, this means the boxes themselves are real, and that yes, Microsoft will indeed be pushing Anytime Upgrade through retail channels.
If you want some context as to how Microsoft arrived to this new box design, go ahead and check out Brandon LeBlanc’s post over at the Windows Team Blog. As for a physical size comparison: the full version boxes carry the same dimensions as the current Vista boxes.
(There’s nothing relevant inside the boxes themselves; just a fake key and a CD of Visio inside the retail box of which I was also taking some pictures.)
Have at it:
On an unrelated note, we (the staff of AeroXperience) would like to wish our condolences to the Jackson family with regards to the recent, sudden, and highly tragic passing of Michael Jackson
posted on June 16, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
It has come to my attention (Thanks, William and Pastor Johnnie Sloan!) that a number of spambots took advantage of our lenient forum registration mechanisms to spam other blogs and forums. To this end, I’d like to personally apologize for the inconvenience caused. We are also trying to curb spam on our own blog and board, but this new form caught us off guard mainly due to its implementation.
Spambots were registering zero-post user accounts and filling the About-Me profile information with ads for the usual cocktails of worthless medications. We’ve done a mass deletion of all zero-post accounts made after the 20th of May and temporarily disabled the ability for a member with less than 100 posts to edit his/her profile. As a result, the spam links associated were typically in this format:
http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showuser=insert_number_here
We expect to return back to normal operating conditions soon.
Again, my sincerest thanks to William and Pastor Johnnie Sloan for tipping me off, and to the Akismet crew for guidance on the matter.
For those looking for IPs and emails to block, I can’t give block-worthy IPs as the automated nature of the spam meant that new IPs were used for each account. However, one domain suffixed to the bulk of our spam was “@top-medz.com”. If you operate your own forums and have recently fallen victim to spammers using your board to spam others, please check for this domain and any others and pass it to the guys at Akismet.
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posted on June 12, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
Update: added a link to the original exploit
I really, really hate having to interrupt a good series bashing Apple, but this has to be said.
Long has resumed his crusade on fixing UAC, and normally, I would tell him to give it up for the sake of saving his own time. However, even though Mark Russinovich might not see UAC as a security boundary, the original UAC team sure as hell did, which makes me want Long to see this all the way through. (check the sidebar on the left)
“User Account Control (UAC) is a core security feature in the next release of Windows Vista and Windows Server code name Longhorn.” –UAC Blog
Guys, just fix it. I don’t see why things have to be made so hard; the UAC team clearly calls it a security feature, so do them a favor, don’t make them feel like they’ve wasted their time, and fix the problem. Thanks, Long, for telling me that this can’t actually be fixed as it’s a design issue, so here’s a better solution: give the user the ability to chose which UAC setting he/she wants upon first run. Here are three good options:
- Always On
- Notify when programs try to change settings (give a warning with this option about the potential risk of compromise)
- Always Off (give a bigger warning with this option)
You’ll notice that I didn’t actually suggest the option which gets rid of the secure desktop: I personally believe that that particular option offers absolutely no benefit over having UAC off altogether.
I figured it had to be said.
(If you want to take this for a test run yourself, check Leo Davidson’s site for the original source code and binaries for the proof of concept exploit)
Mark & friends, I love you guys dearly, but I’ll be taking the original team’s word on this one. If you guys try editing it out, keep in mind the Internet Archive has a copy of the original statement.
posted on June 10, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
This is the final part in a series of two.
Yesterday, I focused on the un-selling points of the new MacBook Pro line as announced during the WWDC keynote. Today, my focus is going to be on Snow Leopard, Apple’s rather depressing tendency to bash Microsoft, and the rather nasty turn-off this all happens to be. Granted, most of Apple’s recent ad campaigns have comprised of “let’s make things up about Windows!” in order to try and gain market share. Microsoft is only avoiding suing Apple because of the potential for the world’s worst Streisand effect, which is depressing given the libelous nature of the ads themselves.
Having said this, it’s no surprise to see this mentality persist throughout this year’s WWDC keynote, so I’ll pick up from yesterday and explain just why Snow Leopard in and of itself is nothing more than hypocrisy.
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posted on June 9, 2009 by Bryant Zadegan
This is part one in a series of two.
Apple’s WWDC keynote on the 8th of June (yesterday, if it seems like forever passed between then and now) showed the world just how bad Apple’s core products and services are without the Reality Distortion Field™ Steve Jobs generates through the waste matter exuded from his pores. Apple’s core offerings boiled down, really, to just three things as discussed in the keynote:
- Updated MacBook Pros
- Snow Leopard
- A new iPhone
The wonder in all of this is how badly Apple happened to damage their first two offerings in this keynote. Today, I’ll be focusing on the new MacBook Pro line.
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