Asus' Eee PC 901 netbook

If you hang around these parts at
all, you're surely familiar by now with Asus' little Eee PC laptops.
These miniature, low-priced laptops were initially inspired by the One
Laptop Per Child effort aimed at providing laptops to kids in
developing nations, but the Eee PC has become something of a minor
phenomenon in more traditional PC markets. They're portable, cute,
simple to use, will let you access the 'net on the go, and are cheap
enough to be an impulse buy. The Eee PC was an instant success for
Asus, and the firm has responded by rallying around the concept with a
whole line of Eee PC products.

The original Eee PC required some compromises in overall utility in
order to meet its price point, but newer models have brought more
functionality in exchange for somewhat higher prices. In many ways, the
901 is the quintessential second-generation Eee PC, a direct extension
of the concept that does away with many of the original's shortcomings.
With an 8.9" screen that's full "web width" resolution, an Intel Atom
processor, and a rated battery life of nearly eight hours, the 901 is a
much more capable basic computer. In fact, Asus didn't stop there.
Thanks to a rich complement of extras like Bluetooth, a
multi-touch-capable touchpad, and Windows XP, the 901 forges deep into
ultraportable territory traditionally occupied by the likes of the
pricey Sony T series. Yet the Eee PC 901 still sells for only $599.

Is there a catch? Sort of, but the tradeoffs aren't as bad as you
might think. I've spent a few weeks acquainting myself with this
system, and I'm generally impressed. Read on for my take on life with
the Eee PC 901.

First things first: this thing is really very small
Since
we first started covering the Eee PC, I think some folks have failed to
understand exactly how small these things actually are. We've taken
pictures and offered them up, like so:

And I'll admit, you might be tempted to think you're viewing
something close to a full-sized laptop when looking at a picture like
that, devoid of any size reference. So, we've tried some size
comparisons, to help folks catch a sense of it. Like this one, next to
a CD jewel case.

That kind of helps, I think. You can probably look at this and begin
to absorb the fact that the Eee PC 901 measures 8.86" wide by 6.9"
deep. A size comparison against my "ultraportable" Sharp M4000
Widenote, with its 13.3" screen, might bring things further into focus.

Here, you can see that the Eee PC 901 is roughly half the
size of my relatively small laptop in terms of width and depth. That
might bring it home for you, but perhaps not. You may simply need to
see one in person in order to grasp the fact that these things are
small—hold-it-in-one-hand, slide-it-into-the-map-pocket small. Asus
even provides a nifty black neoprene sleeve with each Eee PC that
serves to protect it as you lug it about in one hand.

That said, the 901 isn't quite as tiny as the original Eee PC. A big
part of the difference is its thickness, which ranges from 0.83" at the
front of the unit to 1.54" at the back—nearly as thick as my Sharp, as
you can see above. The 901 is also just a tad larger all around than
the Eee PC 700.

The Eee PC 700 (left) and the 901 (right)

The Eee PC 700 squats atop the 901

You might think that when you get this small, adding a little extra
bulk won't really matter—and you'd be mostly right, but at these
dimension and 2.43 lbs., the 901 does feel quite a bit more substantial
in the hand. It's large enough to remind you it's a real computer,
whereas the original Eee PC looked and felt like a toy.

Then again, that impression isn't entirely inaccurate. The 901's
slightly larger frame houses considerably more functionality than the
original Eee PC, all told. Not only that, but the 901's build quality,
fit, and finish belong to the big leagues. Gone is the flat, white
exterior of the original, replaced by a pearlescent finish that looks
like it would be at home on a Lexus. Of course, keeping a white car
clean isn't easy, and this netbook's shiny finish collects fingerprints
faster than the FBI. That's the price of flashiness, I suppose.
Meanwhile, the 901's big hinges suggest sturdiness, and they're
tensioned perfectly. The screen folds closed with a satisfying snap.

From : http://techreport.com/

Asus Eee PC 901 Black Notebook

This is the black ASUS Eee PC 901 notebook that is perfect for those that love to use computers on the move.

The Eee PC 901 features a shockproof SSD (Solid State Drive) so that
users can enjoy a stable experience with their UMPC. You will find
high-speed 802.11n connectivity, 8 hours of battery life to keep you
connected much longer.

If you love to customize your gadgets then you will love the idea
that the PC 901 has a choice of 6 different designs, this helps your
UMPC fit your personality. This is the perfect laptop for outdoors and
traveling.

From : http://www.product-reviews.net/

submit

My Queue Link Directory

Microsoft Works to Perfect Windows Vista

An advertising blitz intended to help Microsoft polish the tarnished brand of its Windows Vista operating system began this week with a head-scratcher of a commercial.

The ad features Jerry Seinfeld flexing some new shoes, Bill Gates adjusting his shorts and no mention of Vista. Microsoft says the ad is meant to get people talking, and that other parts of the marketing campaign will actually get into what its software can do.

But the advertising, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars over several years, is really just “air cover,” according to Bill Veghte, the Microsoft executive who is responsible for sustaining Windows, probably the most lucrative franchise in history.

For more than a year, Mr. Veghte and his team have been developing ways to transform the experience of buying and using personal computers that run Microsoft software.

Corps of Microsoft engineers, for example, have been dispatched to tweak hardware and software to make Vista PCs faster and less crash-prone. Microsoft has stepped into the world of PC retailers in a way it never has before, offering training and advice — and even paying to put hundreds of “Windows gurus” in stores.

By now, Microsoft insists that most of the frustrating technical problems with Vista, which was introduced in January 2007 after repeated delays, have been resolved — and many industry executives and analysts agree.

Yet Vista’s image problems have opened the door to alternatives to Windows as never before. Windows still commands more than 90 percent of the market for personal computer operating systems. But Apple’s Macintosh operating software — which runs only on Apple machines — is gaining ground, especially in the United States.

Microsoft’s stumbles have also given momentum to the shift of software away from the PC and onto the Web. Web-based programs for e-mail, spreadsheets and other tasks can be run in a browser, undermining the value of the underlying operating system. Indeed, Google’s entry into the browser market this week is an implicit declaration that the browser is increasingly supplanting the PC operating system as a strategic computing gateway.

Microsoft makes much of its living from Windows, and a very good living it is. In the year ended in June, Microsoft’s Windows group generated revenue of nearly $16.9 billion and operating profits of more than $13 billion, a phenomenal 77 percent margin.

To keep that business humming, Microsoft needs to have consumers and corporations upgrade to new versions of Windows — something that has not been so easy with Vista.

“What we’re seeing with Vista is that for the first time some significant portion of consumers and business customers have decided it’s not worth upgrading,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “If they don’t, the end of the franchise is at hand.”

The main problem with Vista, Microsoft said, was that given the delays, uncertainty and significant changes in the software, the rest of the industry was not ready when Vista finally arrived. There are one billion worldwide users of the various versions of Windows. Hundred of thousands of hardware devices and software applications run on it, and they need connecting programs, called drivers, to work smoothly with it.

Vista represented a big shift from its predecessor, XP, so it required a lot of new drivers — and Microsoft did a poor job of communicating how much work was needed. Often, Microsoft said, an older driver still worked with Vista, but it slowed down the PC or made it crash unpredictably. Today, 77,000 hardware devices and components are compatible with Vista, more than twice the number when Vista was introduced.

“We are in a very different position with Vista than we were even six months ago,” said Mr. Veghte, senior vice president for Windows strategy and marketing. “And there are a lot of people holding forth with criticism of Windows Vista that have not used Vista, or not recently.”

Just after Vista shipped, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, tapped Mr. Veghte, 41, to move to the Windows business. In his 18 years at Microsoft, Mr. Veghte has had a wide-ranging career in sales, marketing and software development (he holds two patents).

Vista’s troubles were seen within Microsoft’s management ranks, characteristically, as an opportunity. Mike Nash, who had worked with Mr. Veghte before, signed up to join him. “There was so much we could do better,” said Mr. Nash, who is vice president for Windows product management. “Our task was to shake things around and make the Windows business much more sustainable over the years.”

From : http://www.nytimes.com/

Apple doesn't see any ceiling to Mac gains

San Francisco: Apple Inc. doesn't see "any ceiling" to market-share gains for its Macintosh computer, either in the US or globally, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said.

"You're seeing Macs all over the place," Oppenheimer, 45, said yesterday during a presentation at the Citi Investment Research Technology Conference in New York.

Apple's personal-computer shipments soared 38 per cent in the US last quarter, vaulting it to third place, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Apple has capitalised on the popularity of its iPod media players and iPhones to attract buyers to its computers.

The fact that the Mac operating system now allows users to run Microsoft Corp.'s rival Windows software also has won over customers, Oppenheimer said.

The company will continue to price its products at a level that generates "a reasonable margin, while not so high as to create an umbrella for our competitors," Oppenheimer said. Apple ranks behind Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. in US PC sales, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner. Macs account for almost half of Apple's revenue.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped 23 cents to $165.96 at 3:05pm. New York time Thursday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares had fallen 16 per cent this year.

The company wants to bring the iPhone to China, Oppenheimer said, without elaborating. Apple is "very happy" with the profit margins on the new iPhone 3G model, which debuted in July, he said.

From : http://www.gulfnews.com/

Apple clamps down on Google AdWords

The disappearance of Apple-related advertisements from Google's AdWords service has Australian resellers fearing online sales leads will evaporate as Apple strengthens its own local retail presence and clamps down on other companies using its trademarks.

David Macintosh, of Ultimo, Sydney based Apple reseller MacToFront, raised the alarm after noticing that sponsored links incorporating Apple terms no longer display any results on Google search pages – except for links to Apple's own sites. Macintosh was subsequently informed by Google that three more of MacToFront's ads have been suspended "pending revision". The suspended ads read:

Discount Macs
Lowest prices on Apple computers
Fast delivery, Australia wide!
store.mactofront.com.au

Sydney Apple Reseller
Lowest prices on Apple computers
Fast delivery, Australia wide!
store.mactofront.com.au

Online Mac Sales
Lowest prices on Apple computers
Fast delivery, Australia wide!
store.mactofront.com.au

Google's e-mail requested that MacToFront remove the words "Apple" and "Mac" from its ads—a request that has Macintosh wondering how he's supposed to sell Apple products.

"Last time I looked, I was an Apple Authorised Reseller," he argues, "and hence should be able to promote their wares—which includes their logo and trademarks. It seems that I am now restricted to using generic terms such as 'laptops', 'desktops' and 'MP4 players'."

"How is an Apple Authorised Reseller to harness the power of the internet to allow people to find an alternative," he continues, calling the move "the next nail in the coffin for independent Apple resellers now that Apple now has a US retail presence in Australia."

Google Australia spokesperson Rob Shilkin confirmed the company does have procedures in place by which trademark holders can block other companies from using their trademarks in AdWords.

"Australian businesses can have their trademarked terms monitored by Google by submitting a trademark complaint for investigation," Shilkin explained. "As soon as a complaint is made, we investigate quickly and can then stop use of that trademark as a keyword or as text in the ad going forward." (more information on the process is available here).

Apple and Mac aren't the only keywords affected: Australian Macworld investigations confirmed that a Google search on 'ipod' produced no advertising links except a link to the Official iPod Store. MacToFront's name did still appear atop the list of ads that appeared during searches for 'nano' and 'time capsule'. A search for 'Leopard' returned no advertising, while 'Mac OS X' returned just one Mac support job-related link.

Macintosh isn't the only reseller noticing a change in Apple's relationship with Google. Another reseller, who asked not to be named, said he had begun advertising with AdWords in the past few months but noticed recently that the company's price per AdWords clickthrough had gone up from $0.80 per click to $13.50 (Aus).

"We are an Apple reseller but our key focus is on the support side of things, and in particular the iPhone," he said. "Because we operate in a fairly niche area, Yellow isn't really going to do anything for us—and we though that Google might. We'd like to be able to put 'iPhone' in our ads as it's key to our business, but we can't. Paying $13.50 per click is just pathetic, especially when you don't even know if it's not just someone stuffing around."

Apple Australia did not respond to requests for comment.

[NOTE: $1 Australian is about $0.81 U.S.]

From : http://www.macworld.com/

Radical Desktops Deliver Power To The People. But What About IT?

A slate of contentious issues--social, economic, and technological--will radically alter the business user's computing experience by the end of this decade. Windows XP is the corporate standard desktop and will be for years to come. How employees receive the XP experience, however, will undergo a dramatic shift in as little as two years, whether IT is ready or not. Application and desktop streaming toolsets, robust Web apps, the increasing power

of smartphones, and multiple varieties of desktop virtualization are challenging our basic assumptions about what the terms "computer" and "operating system" mean.Sure, nearly all of today's corporate computing needs can be met with a 5-year-old Windows XP machine running a core of legacy server-based software plus a few Web applications. The dirty little secret of this status quo is that companies are pouring more money into support and upkeep of these fat-OS boxes than they care to admit, even internally, and CIOs have serious doubts about continuing down this path. One proof point: Windows Vista is a bust in the enterprise. In fact, 82% of the 376 business technology professionals who responded to our InformationWeek Analytics Radical Desktop poll say their organizations will still be running Windows XP as 2010 comes to a close; 19% expect to be using pre-XP desktops, such as Windows 2000 or Windows ME.

Part of the reason for XP's almost unnatural longevity: Until recently, CIOs didn't have a good alternative. Now, however, virtualization is transforming the way IT departments view the data center, and myriad players large and small are looking to extend virtualization strategies to deliver "traditional" desktops to employees in a secure, reliable, and significantly less expensive fashion.

So how radical will the shifts be in two years? From an end-user perspective, the look and feel of applications will be similar, though a virtualized desktop means they'll have less administrative power over corporate PCs. Employees will have a much more convincing argument that they should be allowed to choose their devices, as more Web-based applications are ported to run on multiple platforms.

But those responsible for delivering the desktop to employees should get ready for profound change. We're at the cusp of a shift in thinking, and there will be no "right" answer for the desktop of tomorrow. All organizations will host a mix of computing environments--conventional, virtualized, centralized in-house, and hosted off site. Employees will work from a variety of devices, and the only constant will be demand for 24/7 access to personal and corporate resources via ever more browser-based business applications, not just e-mail. In fact, 72% of our respondents work at companies where users access business apps via smartphones.

On the IT side, we expect to see a surprisingly diverse, confusing, feature-rich smorgasbord of delivery mechanisms for desktops and application suites. Seismic shifts are in the works as a wide variety of vendors maneuver to get that XP desktop in front of employees via a variety of methods, old and new.

Topping the list of justifications for moving away from the traditional fat client-server model is total cost of ownership. Analysts and auditors have been bemoaning the ancillary costs of deploying and maintaining desktops since enterprises started rolling them out. Now, the latest round of cost-cutting driven by high energy prices is finally shaking out the details and raising both green awareness and a realization of the bottom-line financial impact of maintaining the support staff to keep depreciated PCs up, running, and even marginally secure.

Roughly one-fifth of our respondents have a fully loaded annual support cost greater than $1,000 per desktop, so it's not surprising that when we asked what would drive them to make a drastic change, the top response was cutting costs. Of course, this is the argument that mainframe pundits put forth during the initial rush to distributed computing, and it's unlikely CIOs will be fooled twice. Before moving to a cloud or virtualized model, all the companies we spoke with will do exhaustive TCO analysis, so vendors should get their spreadsheets in order.

Of course, most of the savings comes from reduced staffing costs, never something IT wants to hear.

Continues