My Nextel i870 phone died recently and through my insurance I was able to get a new Motorola i880 cell phone. I received it on Friday and so far so good. I really dislike the color of the entire phone though. I have no idea what they were thinking. It’s an ugly maroon/purple. It is really hideous IMHO.
As far as functionality goes, it’s about the same as the i870. It has the same functions except that it has a 2.0 megapixel camera. To me the different between the i870 and the i880 camera is negligible.
I still plan on changing carriers as soon as my contract with Nextel is up. I have about one more year so it’s quite a long time from now but as soon as I am free, I’m gone with the wind.
I just dislike the selection of Nextel phones; the selection is very limited. Also they’re so bulky since they have all the PTT technology embedded in them.
I’m going to T-Mobile. I can’t wait.
Hmm, what can I say? My first impression of it? It is buggy and it sucks. I installed it onto a computer that is running Windows XP (clean install) and upon installation I immediately received a service error. I thought perhaps I needed to restart the computer. Upon restarting and booting into Windows, the same error appeared. It’s definitely not looking too good.
Ad-Aware was the very first antispyware that I used to combat spyware. It was a great piece of software during its prime. Eventually the spyware makers got smart and learned how to successfully bypass the Ad-Aware detection. That and things got extremely complex.
Hopefully I will get around to installing a working version and I’ll be able to put it to a test.
Currently if you’re looking for antispyware software I highly recommend the following:
Spy Sweeper
Spy Sweeper is a powerful antispyware tool. It removes a lot of the nasty’s that are hard to remove. However, it is resource intensive so I would recommend that you change the setting of having Spy Sweeper from starting up during the computer’s startup.
Super Antispyware
This little guy, well I shouldn’t say little, but this guy is amazing. This also combats a lot of the nasty’s as well. If you use Spy Sweeper and are still experiencing an infection, than I highly recommend installing Super Antispyware and using it to its fullest potential. It’s a great tool.
Above are two links to each program. They are both trials although the Super Antispyware is actually a full program that will last indefinitely. Hope you enjoy both and use them wisely!
Today I’ll try to answer a few questions about flash or solid state based hard drives. First and foremost, what is a flash based hard drive?
If you’ve ever messed with a digital camera and saved your pictures to an SD card or a Sony memory stick or any other type of flash based memory including thumb drives, then you know what flash is. It is a non-volatile type of storage.
Why would anyone want one as a hard drive?
Well for starters, the hard drives that we use now have moving parts in them which in turn create a lot of heat and often time’s failure. With flash or solid state drives, there are no moving parts therefore the heat that the drive produces is significantly reduced and the possibility for failure goes down significantly [since there are no moving parts]. On top of that, solid state drives are much faster than their predecessors, the platter based hard drives.
How fast are solid state drives?
The SSD drives are much faster during startup. There are no moving parts in the drive therefore when the drive does its seeking for the information, it doesn’t have to go through the entire disk from the outer platter to the inner platter and instead seeks it through the solid state media.
You should also see a significant increase in speed while opening applications.
What are the downsides of having a solid state drive?
Price, first and foremost, size and reliability down the line.
SSD drives are certainly going to be the future. How much longer until it catches on is unknown. With Seagate reporting that they’re going to discontinue making any more IDE drives, it looks like it’s coming sooner than later.
I’m currently away from the shop, on vacation until this coming Monday. It’s been a well needed one. Things have been getting quite hectic at work and I am glad I was able to get away for a week. I’ve tried to take a break from all things tech but unfortunately that just isn’t possible this day and age.
I’ll be back on Monday and whatever fixes/news/updates I find I will be sure to post about. Thanks for visiting and I hope everyone I staying safe this summer.
The Intel Quad-Core line of processors received a new price cut. The lowest Q6600 quad processor is now $299.99. That is FOUR cores. That is amazing in and of itself – that four cores, yes four, are on one chip and is only $299.99. They are tearing AMD a new one with this price cut. AMD doesn’t even have a consumer quad-core processor out that is as cheap as the Intel counter-part. This is just ridiculous! They are stealing the lead by leaps and bounds. I am wondering if AMD can even make a comeback with Barcelona. I doubt it. Things are definitely heating up for all everyone including the consumers. This can only get better (unless AMD flops completely) then Intel can just go about doing a price drop ever few years as opposed to each year or six months.
I really think Dell dropped the ball with their new line of Inspiron laptops. I think they honestly look ugly. When you view the laptop from the front and you see the middle bottom portion of the laptop, it seems like it has a weird contour. It’s really weird looking. I was reading a comparison between an HP and the Inspiron over at NotebookReview.com and you can easily see the difference between the two.
Now when has that stopped someone from buying something as they prefer form over function? I don’t know but if you watch people the way they buy cars, they don’t immediately go for the Volvo straight away for the safety features now do they?
I think the aesthetics plays a huge role in a buyer’s perspective. I know for a fact that most of the stuff under the hood of the Inspiron is great in many ways (C2D processor, etc.). But their new makeover has me giving the Inspiron second thoughts; although I honestly haven’t a clue who I would invest my money in if I had the opportunity to purchase a new laptop.
I may give their XPS line a try. It’s a tad bit pricier but the look still resembles the older Inspirons that they discontinued.
Why oh why do they play with the looks? Can’t they get some beta testers or leak some pictures or something in order to get some feedback? I think that’s the number one failure for most companies who try to release “new” versions of their products. They don’t test the waters with people before releasing it.
Go to your registry.
Delete this key: HKLM\software\trendmicro\pc-cillin\system
BE CAREFUL AS YOU’RE DEALING WITH THE REGISTRY. I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU EXPORT THAT KEY FIRST PRIOR TO DELETING.
Go to your control panel, add/remove programs, click on the Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security “Remove” and be done with it.
Toodles.
Okay guys, I found me a good one. The file mentioned in the title, w70n51.sys is driver for an Intel wireless card. The card can be found on many makes and models of laptops. So far I’ve confirmed two Dells and one Sony to be affected by this problem. The symptom is that when you get online using your wireless card, blue screens occur. I looked through all three computer’s dump files and found that w70n51.sys is a nasty little bugger and has been causing problems for a lot of people. My only solution would be to update the driver if you can find one. Otherwise I’m still researching it and once I figure something out I will definitely let you all know.
I have a Sony laptop, model PCG-K17 here getting extremely hot. I think it has an issue with the memory modules. Everything else is getting extremely hot. I blew out the vents with compressed air and a lot of dust came out. I hope this resolves this issue. I’ll be sure to update.
I’m happy to report that Microsoft has recently upgraded the Xbox 360’s warranty from 1-year to 3-years from the date of purchase. This is due to the many Xboxes that have been having significant amounts of problems with overheating and the Red Ring of Death.
They’re going to lose out on more than one billion dollars embarking on this crazy endeavor but in all honesty, I think it will pay for itself in the long run. For one, they’ll be keeping many console gamers content with this new warranty. People will have a good feeling about Microsoft as opposed to that nasty taste in their mouth from paying over $300.00 for a console only to have it fail one year out from the DOP and then having to drop another $150 or so to have Microsoft repair it.
On the other side, there are tons of people worried. Asking questions like why is this still happening? When will the major problem be addressed and fixed? So far people have been left to speculate as to what the problem actually is that is plaguing all of these Xbox 360s. It boils down to overheating. The Xbox 360 has yet to move down to the 65nm processor size that they had original planned on doing this summer.
In other news, the PS3 is getting a $100 price cut come July 15th. The reason for this is obviously their console is overpriced and is losing the console war between Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Sony is at the bottom of the three and are probably losing quite a lot of revenue. The great thing about the price cut is you get a Blu-ray player on top of the gaming console. This in my eyes will attract a lot more people to buy the PS3. Maybe even those who would have never even wanted one in the first place but are av-philes and want the player for the Blu-ray capability.
What can be said is that the consumers are the winners at the end of the day. Although I still think the PS3 is a bit on the high side. On top of that you still need an HDTV to experience the greatness of either console. Whereas the Wii is still in short supply and demand is extremely high.
What do you plan on buying if you haven’t already bought one? Also don’t forget that Microsoft has a new 3-year warranty on their Xbox 360 consoles. Use it to your advantage!