Try And Test

AOL Celebrates Third Anniversary With Weblogs

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

AOL celebrates the third anniversary of its acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. this month. In 2005,Weblogshad a large portfolio of niche blogs targeted at business and professional users, in addition to a general readership.Since then,Weblogs has honed itsportfolio to 29blogs focused on major consumer passion points such as technology, autos, finance, video games and travel.Since 2005, Weblogs hasseenworldwide unique visitors climbnearly 1,000% (122% annually, on average)and page views riseover 1,500% (154% annually, on average), according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix.

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Interactive Mirror dazzles onlookers, never lies

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

It was just a month ago that Alpay Kasal of Lit Studios was impressing us with LaserGames, beaming all sorts of fun, interactive visuals on the wall. Now, with a few tweaks, he’s turned that projector around and made a two-way mirror into a sort of digital portal. “Interactive Mirror” uses the same basic mouse emulation as LaserGames — it seems to lack multi-touch but offers some interesting ideas, like showing how a custom T-shirt would look if you were wearing it. That’s potentially useful, but its primary function seems to be inducing childish wonderment in your friends. If the wide-eyed participants in the video below are any indication, it seems to do that quite well.

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10 things your IT guy wants you to know

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

  1. If you ask me technical questions please don’t argue with me because you don’t like my answer. If you think you know more about the topic, why ask? And if I’m arguing with you…it’s because I am positive that I am correct, otherwise I’d just say “I don’t know” or give you some tips on where to look it up, I don’t have the time to just argue for the sake of it.
  2. Starting a conversation by insulting yourself (i.e. “I’m such an idiot”) will not make me laugh, or feel sorry for you; all it will do is remind me that yes, you are an idiot and that I am going to hate having to talk to you. Trust me; you don’t want to start a call that way.
  3. I am ok with you making mistakes, fixing them is my job. I am not ok with you lying to me about a mistake you made. It makes it much harder to resolve and thus makes my job more difficult. Be honest and we can get the problem resolved and continue on with our business.
  4. There is no magic “Fix it” button. Everything takes some amount of work to fix, and not everything is worth fixing or even possible to fix. If I say that you just need to re-do a document that you accidentally deleted 2 months ago, please don’t get mad at me. I’m not ignoring your problem, and it’s not that I don’t like you, I just cant always fix everything.
  5. You are not the only one who needs help, and you usually don’t have the most urgent issue. Give me some time to get to your problem, it will get fixed.
  6. Emailing me several times about the same issue in the same day is not only unnecessary, it’s highly annoying. Emails will stay until I delete them, I won’t delete them until I’m done with them. I will typically respond as soon as I have a useful update. If it is an urgent issue, let me know (see number 5).
  7. Yes, I prefer email over telephone calls. It has nothing to do with being friendly, it’s about efficiency. It is much faster and easier for me to list out a set of questions that I need you to answer than it is for me to call and ask you them one by one. You can find the answers at your leisure and while I’m waiting I can work on other problems.
  8. Yes, I seem blunt and rude. It’s not that I mean to, I just don’t have the time to sugar coat things for you. I assume we are both adults and can handle the reality of a problem. If you did something wrong, I will tell you. I don’t care that it was a mistake, because it really makes no difference to me. Don’t take it personal, I just don’t want it to happen again.

(Note: This article was not penned by me. I found it here. But, that blog has been deleted by the author. So I am recreating the post here. If anyone know the name of the actual author, please do let me know. I would be happy to give credits to him/her.)

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M2400HD: BenQ’s New 24” Full HD LCD Screen Available in Japan Next Month

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

BenQ announced the November 1st availability of their M2400HD, a 24-Inch LCD screen. For around 420€, it features a 24’’ panel with 1920×1080 resolution, a brightness is 300cd/m², a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 (with a DCR of 10,000:1), a response time of 5ms, and AMA (Advanced Motion Accelerator) and Senseye Tech.
It also comes with an USB Hub (three ports), a 2Mpix web camera, and HDMI/DVI-D/Mini D-Sub interface.

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Gmail’s Canned Responses is E-mail for the Lazy

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

The makers of Mail Goggles, the popular application for drunk people, have announced their next Labs innovation: automated e-mails.

“Canned Responses” allows you to harness filters on incoming messages and create a stock pile of automated, cookie cutter responses.  And you don’t even have to click “Send,” as Gmail will do that for you as well.

The new feature was designed based on feedback from users in Google’s forums.

Canned Responses could be pretty useful for those clever enough crack the math of Mail Goggles and send out a drunk e-mail.  While you recover from that hangover, let Gmail handle the e-mail apologies.

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Sonilex is slimmer than the PS3 and like, totally plays Tekken

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

Hey there, budget-conscious gamers: the Vii didn’t quite pan out the way we’d all hoped, but we just want you to know you still don’t have to spend $500 or wait for a PS3 Slim to hit the shelves to have a gaming experience worthy of 2008. Just pick Sonilex — it’s a fraction of the size of the PS3, and at around 32 bucks even the most stingy gamer can splurge for it. Word is 41 “NES games” have been released for Sonilex this year alone (probably piled into that odd-looking cart on the left there), including, incredibly but really, the unauthorized NES port of “Tekken.” After all, the game cart says “2008″ on it so you know you’re getting the absolute cutting edge of NES games — like, ones that were never even released until just now, okay? No word on Blu-ray though. That’s a deal-breaker if you ask us.

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Bill Gates launches new technology company

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 23, 2008

Bill Gates has yet again entered the shadowy world of the technology business, with the launch of bgC3, a mere four months after departing from Microsoft.

The details of what the company actually does are shrouded in mystery.

While TechRadar is hoping this means that Gates is re-branding himself as a real-life James Bond super-villain, the blogosphere believes that bgC3 is merely a business ‘think tank’ that will help create the next big ideas for the technology industry. How very boring.

Small business

Experts are dampening any promise that bgC3 will be as big as Microsoft, citing a recent letter to a Kirkland city official – where the new business will be based – where a Gates official explained that between just 40 and 60 people will be employed by the company.

This is the first major announcement of what Mr Gates has been up to since his departure from Windows in June of this year. Well, other than starring in the ill-fated Gates/Seinfeld Windows adverts.

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Nvidia set to revolutionise laptop graphics

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 22, 2008

When Steve Jobs talked about Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M during his MacBook launch presentation he waxed lyrical about the new chip’s super capabilities. This could be seen as just another Jobsism. After all, many will see the 9400M as just another notebook graphics chip.

But those who do are missing the point; the 9400M was not just plucked out of Nvidia’s labs by Apple (with slight poetic licence perhaps) but it’s an integrated, not dedicated, graphics chip. So what does that mean?

The key point is that Nvidia can now target the segment of the market it so far could not; the 95 million notebooks sold a year with no dedicated graphics on board; the bog-standard Intel notebooks of this world. That means you’d be able to play high-end games on virtually anything. Basically, Nvidia is appealing to those of us who go out to buy an Intel notebook, but who will no longer stand for sluggish graphics or non Vista Premium Ready performance.

In other words, most of us.

Nvidia’s Rene Haas was at pains to point out that there would be little price premium for consumers between choosing a notebook featuring the 9400M and another laptop using an integrated chip, although until other OEMs launch (imminently it seems).

Haas says the new chip brings visual computing to standard notebooks and cited the enhanced GPU capabilities of new apps. He demonstrated Adobe Creative Suite 4 which can take full advantage of an extra GPU. “If Adobe Photoshop finds a local GPU, it will adapt to it. It’s a bit of a watershed event” adds Haas.

The 9400M is half the size of compteting integrated solutions and Nvidia claims it is “five times faster.”

Dual-graphics tech in the MacBook Pro

Nvidia also showed us demos comparing the integrated performance of the Intel GM45 on a new Sony Vaio and the MacBook using Call of Duty 4.

Interestingly the MacBook Pro has another trick up its sleeve. It sports two graphics chips inside. No mention of Nvidia’s SLI dual-GPU tech here; the 9400M is joined with a 9600M GT – pretty powerful stuff – that can be switched off (though on the MacBook Pro, you annoyingly have to log out first).

This neat dual-chip solution will no doubt appeal to many manufacturers, and as with the 9400M itself, expect other manufacturers to jump on board with their own second GPU choices.

Nvidia is understandably exited about Apple being first with the chips (and Jobs’ glowing report of course). “They are an extraordinarily innovative company and an extraordinarily secretive company,” said Ken Brown in a phone briefing with TechRadar after the MacBook launch

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Callpod (re)launches Phoenix Bluetooth conference call system

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 22, 2008

Callpod’s Phoenix is edging dangerously close to the realm of vaporware, but even though the pricing is being kept tightly under wraps, the thing is supposedly available now. For those who’ve managed to think about more than this revolution in the all-too-exciting world of conference calling since January, let’s recap. Essentially, the Phoenix MCS enables five BT headsets to communicate with each other in full duplex over a more than a 300,000-square foot area. Additionally, the base station is completely mobile and packs a rechargeable Li-ion battery good for around 8-hours of talk time (120-hours in standby). When we pinged Callpod to retrieve the highly secretive pricing information, we were told that we’d have to “speak to a sales representative to get a better idea.” Hope you’re up for a chat.

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OWC introduces first external Blu-ray drive with quad interface

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 22, 2008

t’s debatable whether or not Apple is losing its touch with FireWire, but you can rest assured that OWC hasn’t. Said outfit has just announced the industry’s first Blu-ray external drive with a quad interface, meaning you can link it up to your PC or Mac via FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 or eSATA. The Mercury Pro SW-5583 arrives with the capability to toast BD-Rs at a rate of 4x and includes a pair of 25GB BD-R discs for $499.99; the closely related Mercury Pro SW-5583T throws in a full retail version of Roxio Toast 9 Titanium (OS X) and sells for $579.99. Now, if only we could convince Steve that Blu-ray and Macs could indeed get along together, we’d really be satisfied. Full release after the break.

OWC ANNOUNCES INDUSTRY’S FIRST BLU-RAY EXTERNAL DRIVES WITH “QUAD INTERFACE”

OWC Mercury Pro Features Quad Interface for FireWire800/400, USB 2.0, & eSATA – for Mac and PC 4X Speed Writes up to 50GB, Reads/Writes HD-DVD, DVD/DVD-R, CD-R/RW Discs

October 22, 2008 — Woodstock, IL — Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today its new line of OWC Mercury Pro™ Blu-ray “Quad Interface” external drive solutions. The first Blu-ray external drives on the market offering a “Quad Interface” of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA, the OWC Mercury Pro drives feature 4X Blu-ray disc write speed for burning up to 1 gigabyte of data per minute; a data transfer rate up to 150MB per second; Plug and Play connection flexibility; and the convenience of compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh systems.

Burn up to 50GB per Blu-ray Disc and Read/Write to All Optical Media
Immediately available and priced starting at $499.99, the Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive solutions are ideal for consumers with large amounts of High-Def or other video, photos, music, and data files that they want to archive or retrieve using optical media. Mercury Pro Blu-ray drives read and/or write virtually all optical media, including Blu-ray, HD-DVD, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW. The drives provide the well-known advantages of Blu-ray, such as high-capacity storage (burn up to 50GB per disc, enough space for a four hour High-Def movie); full high-quality HD Picture; and Surround Sound capabilities. In addition, the new OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray drives now have write performance twice as fast as previous Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive models.

Pricing for OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray Write and Read external drive solutions:
* OWC Mercury Pro SW-5583: $499.99. Writes and reads Blu-ray, DVD, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW discs. Includes all connection cables and two 25GB BD-R discs.

* OWC Mercury Pro SW-5583T: $579.99. Writes and reads Blu-ray, DVD, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW discs. Includes all connection cables, starter media, and full retail version of Roxio Toast 9 Titanium (Mac OS X).

OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray “Quad Interface” external drive solutions have been fully tested for compatibility with most Apple and Windows built-in and third party DVD/CD tools and players, including Apple iTunes, Apple Disc Burner, Apple iDVD 5, Apple DVD Studio Pro, EMC Retrospect Express, NTI DragonBurn, Roxio Toast, Roxio Easy Media Creator, and Nero Burning.

For more information on the OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive solutions, visit:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives

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New PSP-3000 screen already under fire

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 22, 2008

Anyone planning on buying the just-released PSP-3000 from Sony might want to reconsider just how much of an improvement the new screen is, after it emerged complaints are already flooding in.

The upgraded display was supposed to improve a slight problem Sony acknowledged in the past where moving characters exhibited a ghosting effect and appeared blurred.

Horizontal jaggies

Instead, according to numerous online forums, the ghosting has been replaced by jagged horizontal lines stretching out to either side of some game characters.

Sony told one PSP fan site, “On some occasions, scan lines may appear on scenes where brightness changes drastically … Since this is due to hardware specification, there are no plans for a system software update concerning this issue.”

In other words, “Our new, improved screen might not look all that good, but we’re happy with it, so you can like it or lump it.” Or, perhaps, go buy a PSP-2000?

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Samsung withdraws bid for SanDisk, hurts with words

Posted by: Try And Test on: October 22, 2008

Citing SanDisk’s “rapidly declining prospects,” Samsung has withdrawn its hostile takover bid. In a letter just released by Vice Chairman and CEO Lee Yoon-woo, Samsung writes, “After nearly six months of efforts to pursue a transaction with no meaningful progress, we are withdrawing our proposal to acquire SanDisk.” The letter then turn a shade more nasty with this:

“Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a hurried renegotiation of your relationship with Toshiba and major job losses across your organisation all point to a considerable increase in your risk profile and a material deterioration in value, both on a stand-alone basis as well as to Samsung.”

Analysts will remind you that the move does not mean that Samsung has abandoned its quest for SanDisk entirely. However, further action in the current economic climate seems unlikely give the Korean governments warning against major overseas mergers and acquisitions. Besides, just who is SanDisk? Can it really be trusted after being seen palling around with slotMusic?

Update: SanDisk just responded by blaming Samsung for the breakdown in negotiations while questioning its intentions. SanDisk then pivoted abruptly on heel and pretended to freshen-up its makeup while sneaking a wanton look back at Samsung in the reflection of its shareholder discontent. At least that’s our read on the matter.

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