Windows 8.1 blotware

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Mark Urbin

I’m not surprised by the amount of bloatware Microsoft is including in its “free” Windows 8.1 update.

I’m sad, but not surprised.

Filed under: Microsoft, Windows 8 | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Building a Hackintosh Mini

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Mark Urbin

Building my Windows Tower last year was fun, so I have been looking for another project.  Then I found this page at Tony Mac’s on building a Hackintosh Mini.

What I’m looking for is a small system to hook up to the TV in the Den.  The motherboard in the parts list has a HDMI port, and I already have a remote keyboard/trackball to use.  There is an Ethernet switch where I want to put it so, no need for a WiFi card either.  I figure I can build it for around $470.  That includes $20 for a copy of Mountain Lion MacOS.  Not bad considering low end Mac Minis start at $600, and that is with a 500 Gig HD and 4 Gig of RAM.  I’m planning on a 2 TB HD and 8 Gig of Ram.  The foot print is a little bigger than a Mac Mini, but I’m replacing a mini-tower, so the space isn’t a problem.

Here is the parts list I’m looking at:

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Filed under: Apple, Geek Skills | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Google enters the 7″ tablet market

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Mark Urbin

Bladerunner may have given us the Nexus 6, but Google is delivering on the Nexus 7.

Before you get your hopes up, the Nexus 7 is a 7″ android based tablet.  Supposed to be available in July 2012.

There is a comparison chart over at gdgt that compares it to the other two important players in the 7″ tablet market, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Color Nook.  There are some gaps in the data on that chart, most of which can be filled with a quick search.

For a more detailed peek under the hood of the Nexus 7, try the PCMag review.  Here are some key features. It will be running Android 4.1, not a feature reduced in house version of Android like the Fire or Nook.  It has a Quad core CPU with a 12 core GPU.  That is a lot more horse power than you get with the Kindle Fire.  The Nexus 7 screen resolution is a bit better, 1280 x 800 opposed to the Fire’s 1024 x 600 and it has double the RAM as well.  The Nexus 7 also has a built in camera in addition to Bluetooth, both features lacking in the Fire & Nook.  What the Nexus 7 doesn’t have is  speakers or a microphone.  It does have a 3.5mm audio jack, which is the only port besides the MicroUSB port.  That’s right, no SD slot.  The Nexus does come in two flavors, one with 8 Gig of storage for $199 and a 16 Gig version for $249.   For comparison, the Kindle Fire also has 8 Gig, and no SD slot.  The Color Nook is the only one that has a SD slot for additional storage.  Given that both Amazon & Google have extensive Cloud storage solutions, I’m not surprised by the lack of the SD slot.

I’ve used the Kindle Fire before, and I liked it.  However, if I had to put down $199 (plus tax) of my money for a 7″ tablet, I would go with the Google Nexus 7.

Update: The MIT Tech Review has their review of the Nexus 7 up.  According to them it does have a speaker.

Filed under: Android, Gadget, Google, tablet | Tagged: , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

How to enable the start menu in Windows 8

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Mark Urbin

As a follow up to my earlier post on Windows 8.

This requires the use of regedit. Pretty straightforward though.

Filed under: Microsoft, Operating Systems | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Why Windows 8 will fail

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Mark Urbin

Oh, and fail it will. Big time.  The single driving issue behind its approaching and certain failure is the Metro Desktop.

Metro clearly defined as a touch screen interface and it is just bloody awful to use with a mouse and keyboard.  Really, it’s truly horrible.

To make it worse, you can’t launch your apps from the desktop, unless you pin them to the taskbar or use a third party app launcher.

Yes, that’s right.  You will have to use a third party app launcher because the idiots at Microsoft have been drinking their own marketing Kool-Aid ™ and have removed the start menu from the desktop.

Now if you are one of those people who think Facebook (where you are the product) is the entirety of the Internet, then you will probably be cool with Metro.

Here is a video that makes it pretty clear that Microsoft expects Windows 8 users to buy new hardware.  Expensive hardware with hardware graphics accelerators and touch screen monitors.

Didn’t these clowns learn anything from Vista?

If the new OS requires expensive new hardware, corporate customers are not going to want to adopt.  Why should they? Windows 7 (or XP for those who are still using it) runs their applications, the employees know how to use it, and they don’t have to spend money on new hardware.

In case the Microsoft execs haven’t noticed, the economy is still bad, and companies are looking for ways to cut costs.  IT is not going to sign off on new hardware just so the rank & file employees can directly access Twitter and Angry Birds from the Metro Desktop.

Windows 7 was a nice apology for Vista, but it looks like Windows 8 will be the reincarnation of Vista.

Good luck with that.

Filed under: Microsoft, Operating Systems | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Lowest cost Android tablet on the market

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Mark Urbin

Currently I would have to say that title belongs to the Nook.  Ya, ya…Barnes & Noble tells you it that it just an ebook reader, but it’s running a crippled version of Android that you can root pretty easily.

It’s pretty straightforward, and you can find just about everything you need at nookDevs. Once you are done, you can load multiple ebook readers, including B&N’s android app!

Downside, no camera and no Bluetooth.

Upside, no monthly service fees!

Disclaimer: In case this wasn’t obviously clear, rooting your Nook is not warranty friendly.

Filed under: Android, Gadget, Google, Open Source, Operating Systems, tablet | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Mucking with Android

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Mark Urbin

I’ve started to muck with Android. Details to follow.

Filed under: Android, Gadget, Google, Operating Systems | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

HP is buying Palm

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Mark Urbin

HP has been on a buying spree.  They bought 3Com, and now they have just purchased a former 3Com company, Palm Corp. for $1.2 billion.

The article I linked talks about what HP could do with Palm’s webOS for mobile devices, including using it in netbooks and tablet devices.

What it doesn’t talk about is Palm’s patent portfolio, which could be worth the price of the sale alone.

Filed under: cell phone tech, Palm | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

I’ve taken the Windows 7 plunge

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Mark Urbin

I’ve got Windows 7 Professional 64 bit on my desktop and copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit on my laptop.  I’m pretty happy so far, the plug and play works quite well, with a couple of noticable exceptions.

First off is my Wireless Laser Desktop 3000 keyboard, which I’m not using to type this because the damn thing is missing keystrokes, which it never did when I was running XP.  Top that off with none of the fancy extra keys work running under Windows 7.  Yes, I did to Microsoft and downloaded the latest drivers, which are listed as Windows 7 compatible.  Annoyance factor is high here, even more so because it is bloody Microsoft hardware.

The second is my Microtek scanner.  It’s a few years old and is still in great shape.  Microtek support claims it will work if you jump though the right hoops in the right order during install.  I haven’ t tried their latest series of hoops yet.

Third is my Bose Companion 5 speakers.  I love these things.  Great sound, but every time Windows 7 finds something it doesn’t like and asks me if it’s OK to run, not only does the screen dim, but it kills the sound! I have to power cycle the Bose system to get my sound back. My work around has to been to hook my iPhone up to the speakers and play the music loaded on that.  A bit of bummer since it is a subset of the music loaded on my desktop.

I’ve got a few old games that won’t run under Window 7 (64 bit) either, but I don’t play them that often anyway.   I’ve got an old desktop that was running a RC version of Win7 that I should scrub and load XP on to deal with stray stuff like that.

Filed under: Microsoft, Operating Systems, Windows7 | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Abandoned technology

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Mark Urbin

As my readers know, I was a big PDA user. Mostly Palm devices, several of which I still have in good working order, including a Palm i705 and a Palm LifeDrive.  The LifeDrive was a really slick bit of technology with a three Gig hard drive, a SD slot, and both WiFi and Bluetooth support.   I still use it now and then and have a lot of legacy data still stored on it.   All that data is synced to my desktop running XP, and I have some desktop apps to get at the data stored in third party software.  BrainForest for example, a good data organizational tool that was developed for the Palm platform.

Recently I upgraded my laptop to Window 7 (32bit).  This was full, format the drive install. So I started the process of installing the applications on the freshly wiped and loaded system.  Everything went fine until I loaded the Palm Desktop software and tried to synch the LifeDrive.

Windows 7, has been really good at recognizing stuff that gets plugged into it, turned up its nose at my LifeDrive.  I visited the Palm site and it’s seems that they have written off their PDA line.  Not a bad business decision, since the future is in Smart Phones, but I need to get that data exported and accessible before I upgrade my desktop to Windows 7.

Palm’s story is that the software for the desktop and the PDA drivers are now owned by a separate company and it up to them to provide support for Windows 7.   Next step would be to try synching with my LINUX system.  I know there is Palm PDA support in multiple LINUX apps.

Filed under: Gadget, Palm, PDA, Windows7 | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

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