Tag PC

Entries 3 Total

What About Ultrabooks?

Oct 20, 11 4:33 PM

Since the announcement of new MacBook Air product line from Apple in late July of this year, Intel is increasingly pushing for its PC partners to roll out Ultrabooks.  Appropriately surmising, many people think Intel wants Ultrabook product lines to take on Apple’s MacBook Air product line.  If it’s true, Ultrabooks do have the specifications to tackle head on against MacBook Airs.

There will be a plethora of Ultrabooks to flood the market.  Ultrabooks can be made by any PC maker.  Intel designs the essential specifications of Ultrabooks such as the processors, and all PC makers will apply such specifications to their own unique designs so a specific Ultrabook from a specific PC maker can stand out somewhat.  This also means the differences of Ultrabooks’ specifications among different brands (i.e., PC makers) might not be that different.

To compete against Apple’s MacBook Airs, Ultrabooks carry competitive specifications.  In general, each Ultrabook should carry low-voltage Intel Core processor (e.g., i5, i7), no thicker than 21mm frame (0.83 inches), at least 5 hours of battery life, and flash storage to allow really fast boot time.  Arming with this information, people now know that there won’t be a specific Ultrabook product line that will be substantially superior over all other Ultrabooks’ product lines.  With so many types and brands of Ultrabooks to choose from, which will be your perfect Ultrabook?  It might have to come down to which PC brand you trust most and knowing ahead why you want an Ultrabook in the first place.

Before you want to buy an Ultrabook, make sure to check out the Ultrabooks from the PC brands that have been good to you in the past first.  Knowing why you need an Ultrabook in the first place will help you pick the right Ultrabook specification.  For an example, let say you have an interest in thinnest, lightest, and average performance laptops with price tags under $1,000.  With this in mind, the current logical choice of laptops has to be the Ultrabooks with the specification that carries 2011 ‘Sandy Bridge’ Core i5, hybrid hard drive, glossy screen, and other general electronic components that most Ultrabooks should carry.

So, why 2011 ‘Sandy Bridge’ Core i5s?  First of all, Sandy Bridge processors are the latest generation processors, and so Sandy Bridge processors should provide the latest capabilities.  Second of all, I suggest Core i5 in the example for two reasons.  The first reason is to match a processor with the need of an average performance laptop, and Core i5 provides average performance for a laptop.  Second reason is that Core i5 is cheaper than Core i7, and so this helps cut down the price of a laptop — hint: the example requires price tags of laptops under $1,000.

So, why hybrid hard drives?  Hybrid hard drives are slower than all-SSDs, but the price tags for hybrid hard drives are cheaper than all-SSDs — hint: the example requires price tags of laptops under $1,000.  At least though, hybrid hard drives are faster than the traditional hard drives and carrying flash storage that allows Ultrabooks to boot faster.

So, why glossy screens?  Glossy screens look sharper indoor.  It’s also possible to add matt layers onto glossy screens to reduce outdoor reflections.

Like the idea of buying one of the top of the line Ultrabooks for best performance and features?  In this scenario, price tags will be expensive for obvious reasons.  It’s easier to choose a specification when you have the money to spend, right?  I guess, because you can always choose the brand you like first, then pick the best specification such as the one that carries 2011 ‘Sandy Bridge’ Core i7, all-SSD, glossy screen, and all other best internal electronic components there are.

One thing you must aware about buying an Ultrabook is that Ultrabooks cannot be upgraded!  According to Ultrabooknews article “Ultrabook Buying Tips,” Intel might have intended to not allow Ultrabooks to be upgradable for Anti-Theft measure.  According to Ultrabooknews article “Ultrabook Buying Tips,” everything is packed tightly and soldered within extremely thin Ultrabooks, this makes one more good reason for Ultrabooks not to be upgradable.  This is why you must know ahead what you really want from an Ultrabook in regarding to the specification.  Without knowing ahead what you really want from an Ultrabook before you plunge into buying one for real, it might be too late to be regretted after the purchase of an Ultrabook since you can’t really upgrade or downgrade it.

According to Ultrabooknews article “Ultrabook Buying Tips,” there are other key features that most Ultrabooks carry, and these are:

  • Wireless display
  • Smart Connect — updating while sleeping
  • Sleep ‘n ‘Charge — charging devices over USB while Ultrabook is sleeping
  • Quick Charge — fast charging of battery of Ultrabook
  • IPS display — wide angle viewing
  • Silent Mode — fan off
  • Enhanced Stereo Speakers
  • ‘HS’ capability with the Bluetooth standard
  • Lockable trackpad
  • USB 3.0
  • 3G/4G data
  • Back-lit keyboard
  • Microphone array
  • Separate headphone out / Mic in

You can check out the list of Ultrabooks that are either in the process of launching or already available at Ultrabooknews’ Product List.

Windows 8 might be released in fall of 2012, but the exact date is still anyone’s guess.  Is it wiser to wait for Windows 8 to be released first before buying an Ultrabook?  It’s up to you really!  Do you really need another laptop right away?  If it’s not so urgent for you to buy a laptop right away, then I suppose it’s wiser for you to wait till Windows 8 comes out.  Nonetheless, it will be months for Windows 8 to come out, and so the waiting is going to be long!  On the plus side, waiting might give you a chance of getting an Ultrabook at a bargain, because by then some Ultrabooks might be cheaper.  Let cross our fingers, OK?

Sources:  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390824,00.asp,
http://ultrabooknews.com/2011/10/17/ultrabook-buying-tips/,
http://ultrabooknews.com/product-list/

Leave a Comment

PC Era Isn’t Over, It’s PC Era Plus!

Aug 11, 11 6:14 PM

Every time here and then, someone prophetically pronounces that PC era is truly over.  Things seem to be especially real this time as so many tablets flood the market, looking to destroy the PC market at once.  On the same page with Steve Jobs, IBM’s CEO Mark Dean believed that PC era’s days have been numbered.  Microsoft’s CEO Frank Shaw thinks that PC era still has some juice left, and so he coins it as PC era plus.

Sure, the cloud has everyone wants to jump on board and think that PC era is over.  They all like to think that powerful PCs are unnecessary, because preferable way of going about computing is to marry to smaller devices that utilize the cloud for storages and processing powers.  It sounds a lot like PC is an ex girlfriend and mainframe is an ex girlfriend that has now become the girlfriend again.  Great, so we don’t care how much more powerful PCs can get, but what if ISPs are going to charge its customers with higher mobile/data service charges?  After all, data float from the customers to the cloud and back must be in hefty volume of bandwidth, right?

Talking about getting everything in the cloud isn’t an answer.  Instead, I feel getting PCs to be evermore powerful will improve the architecture of mobile devices.  Why?  There will be an incentive to make mobile devices to catch up to PCs’ capabilities, because shrinking hardware to ever smaller devices with as many horsepowers as regular PCs or even mainframes is quite a noble goal to strive for.  Powerful PCs won’t have to rely on the cloud 100% of the time, and yet PCs can still use the cloud — having the best parts of both world (i.e., cloud or not).  When customers use powerful PCs, they know they have a choice of not worrying that they have to pay more to get things done in term of bandwidth, because they can just rely on the PCs alone.  No big ISPs can dictate that they have to be on the cloud with crazy data charges for them to process intensive applications.  Keeping data roam at home!

Powerful PCs can improve the Internet, because the Internet needs powerful PCs.  With more powerful PCs around, home users and businesses alike may get creative in making their PCs resourceful for the Internet in ways they think they know best.  Sure, mobile devices are great for the Internet too, but if mobile devices such as tablets are the only way to go, I fear data charges are going to go through the roof if such devices connect to the Internet at all times, unless ISPs are going to be generous which I fail to see such an opportuneness anytime soon.  Please prove me wrong!

In summary, I’m not comfortable with the idea that PC era is over unless ISPs merge mobile data service and home broadband into the same plan!  I don’t feel right to know that the most powerful device in my arsenal is the iPad 2, because I can’t really turn it into a private media server, unless I don’t care about data charges.  Users are just going to be more geeky everyday in term of computing, and so don’t expect users to go cavemen for they have found new love with the tablets.  in computing, the idea of polygamy will be more proper than one’s real relationship.  So, we can’t really expect geeks or everyday computer users to go monogamy with tablets.  To prove this point, many users are still going to buy tablets even though they have smart phones that behave similarly to tablets.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/237916/ibm_declares_
the_end_of_the_pc_era.html#tk.rss_news

Leave a Comment

Detecting Temperatures Of PC’s Components In Ubuntu 11.04

Jul 12, 11 3:17 AM

On Windows 7, you can use Core Temp software to monitor PC’s temperature (i.e., processors’ temperatures).  So, it’s cake just to get the software and fire up the executable program each time if you want to see the temperature of your PC using Core Temp on Windows 7.  How about on Ubuntu 11.04 (Linux)?

There are many ways, but as I Googled for ways, I found one which is very easy to do!  Assuming you know how to use Synaptic or apt-get or aptitude package manager, then this process is cake!  Follow the steps below (I give the source at the end of the post):

  1. Execute the command [sudo aptitude install lm-sensors]
  2. Execute the command [sensors-detect]
  3. Answer YES to questions you feel comfortable with.  Don’t worry, each question will accompany with short explanation which either prompts you to feel comfortable in answering yes or no.
  4. At the end of everything, it will tell you to enter one last command [sudo service module-inits-tools start], please do so just in case the necessary module isn’t yet loaded.
  5. Execute command [sensors] to display the temperatures of your PC’s various components inside the terminal, as you are/were.

As promised, here is the source:  http://ubuntuguide.net/determine-hard-diskcpu-infomationtemperature-in-ubuntu

Leave a Comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 135 other followers