Archive for category PC Tech
The New Job
Posted by jasoncross in Media, PC Tech, Work on December 21, 2009
I know I haven’t updated this blog in awhile…and I probably won’t update very much from here on out. Fair warning.
I got a new job as a Senior Editor at PC World. Just started last week, and I’m still getting my feet wet. Jumping in right before the Christmas holiday break and then CES is a hell of a time to start. Lots of meetings, lots of learning the product database system and publishing system and gearing up new coverage for next year and so on and so forth.
Right now, I’m getting up to speed by taking the reins of the laptop/notebook beat. But I’ll be heading up a “system group” that covers notebooks, desktops, some parts and peripherals, how-tos and stuff, things like that. It’s a goal to re-boot the graphics card coverage over there early in 2010.
So that’s all for now.
Let’s get Press Pause on the Zune Marketplace
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech, Software on October 30, 2009
Okay gang, I have a quick task for you. Don’t worry, this will take about 10 seconds and you don’t have to get up from your computer.
For some reason, Press Pause, the weekly video game web show I co-host with Carlos Rodela, is not listed in the Zune Marketplace. You can get it on iTunes here. You can subscribe to it in the Zune software by adding the RSS feed. But we want to be listed in the excellent Zune Marketplace, and for some reason it’s not there.
So, I need your help to submit it. If they get enough submissions, they’ll add it. Just follow these three steps.
1. Go to the Zune podcast page on the web. Any browser should work fine.
2. Click the bright “Submit a Podcast” button on the left-hand side.
3. In the dialog box that pops up, enter the following URL and click “Submit”: http://mevio.com/feeds/presspause.xml
That’s it! Thanks for all your help! And to show you that this wasn’t just a complete waste of your time…hey, you’re already at this neat Zune podcast directory thing on the web. Did you check it out a bit? You might want to. You can stream any podcast in the Zune marketplace (which is really big) right on the web page. Free. That includes audio and video podcasts. And you don’t need to have a Zune account, or to sign up for anything, or enter in some arcane RSS feed, or any of that stuff. It’s just a big, totally free podcast playback machine on the web. Neat, huh?
Update: Looks like we’re listed now. Thanks to everyone who submitted.
Ninite: A life-saver for new PCs and fresh Windows installs
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech, Software on October 28, 2009
Upgrading to Windows 7? Sure, a lot of noise has been made about whether or not you can do an “in-place upgrade” or not, depending on which version of Windows you’re going from and which version of Win7 you’re going to. My advice – never do an in-place upgrade. If it’s a major new operating system, wipe your drive and start fresh. It’s nothing if not a good excuse to back up all your precious data.
Maybe you’re not doing an upgrade. Maybe you’re shopping around for a new PC. Either way, the biggest pain in the butt with getting a new PC or wiping your drive and starting fresh with a new OS is re-downloading and installing all those indispensable apps you use every day. (Well, the biggest pain is actually backing up all your photos and music and stuff – but you really should be doing that anyway.)
Enter one of the greatest websites in all creation, Ninite.com (no, that’s not hyberbole). It’s an idea so brilliant, so simple, and so useful that I wonder why it hasn’t been done years ago.
It’s Time For a New MobileMark
Posted by jasoncross in Media, PC Tech on October 6, 2009
Battery life ratings on laptops are a lie. Okay, that’s melodramatic: they’re not a lie, they’re just not telling you the truth you think they are. You read some review or look at some spec sheet or label on the shelf in a store and it says “5 hours battery life” and you think you’re going to be able to use your notebook for 5 hours. Then the battery dies in 2 1/2 hours or less. In fact, that “half of what they claim” rule of thumb turns out to be a pretty good one.
As they point out in a pretty neat article about the issue at Icrontic, the problem is that the industry standard for measuring battery life is a program called MobileMark 2007. This program basically runs your computer through some productivity apps, which are pretty easily cached into RAM on modern notebooks so you don’t get much hard disk usage. These run until the battery dies, and that’s your battery life benchmark. Wi-Fi is almost always disabled, the laptop is almost always in its most power-saving and low performance profile, screen brightness is usually at 50% or less, etc.
A Few Thoughts on Nvidia’s Fermi
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming, PC Tech on September 30, 2009
Today was the start of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference. It’s really still just the NVISION conference, because it’s not much of a “industry-wide” conference if ATI and Intel aren’t there. The biggest announcement of the show is undoubtedly the unveiling of Nvidia’s next-generation GPU, code-named Fermi. I’m not sure why they named the chip after Enrico Fermi, who is best known for his work with radioactive substances and controlled nuclear reactions and stuff. But as code-names go, physicists are cool, so I’ll let it slide.
I won’t bother to summarize all the individual features that were revealed today. Tech Report has a excellent article on it, so does AnandTech. I’m just going to editorialize a bit with some of my thoughts based on what we know (and don’t know) so far.
Microsoft Security Essentials – Thumbs Up
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech, Software on September 29, 2009
Today, Microsoft launches its anti-malware software package, Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s honest-to-goodness anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-bad-stuff software that offers real-time protection. It would be pretty easy to make some sort of joke about Microsoft making business for itself, producing operating systems that are open to malicious attack with one hand and selling software to protect yourself from it with the other. But MSE is free, as in no dollars and zero cents free. Free to download, free to use, free updates, free free.
This, of course, means jack-all if the software is crap. Fortunately, it is not crap. In fact, it’s quite good. The fine folks at Ars Technica have a first-look that is favorable, but I’ve been using the beta myself for a couple months on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista PCs so I thought I would offer my two cents.
Samsung NP-Q320 Review at PC World
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech, Work on September 17, 2009
My latest laptop review is up now at PC World, for the Samsung NP-Q320. It’s a pretty good notebook for the price. At just under $1,000, I think it hits the sweet spot for price/performance for a lot of folks. Those $600 notebooks just have too many compromises, I think. At that point you might as well go for something really small and light in the $400 range. I generally prefer a notebook that is small and light enough not to be a burden to carry around (no 17″ models for me…I’m just not the market for that), and for me a really good notebook has got to have discrete graphics. Even if it’s just the extremely low-end GeForce G 105M, as in this Samsung, it’s still way better than integrated graphics.
Of course, if I were buying a notebook for myself, I’d probably wait until the middle of October and get one of those really awesome new HP Envy notebooks. They’re a lot more expensive, but oh-so-awesome. (Probably. Who knows what “gotchas” they haven’t told us about yet.)
Geek 101: A Graphics Card Primer
Posted by jasoncross in Media, PC Tech, Work on September 3, 2009
Just posted over at PC World’s Geek Tech Blog is a new feature I wrote this week called Geek 101: A Graphics Card Primer. They’re apparently going to have a series of “Geek 101″ articles, this is just the first. The article is a very high-level look at some basic terms, companies, and considerations in the consumer graphics market. It intentionally leaves a lot of nitty-gritty stuff out to avoid confusion as much as possible. This is for general computer users to get a better handle on what’s going on in the graphics market and what they should be thinking about when buying a graphics card, or looking at what graphics card comes in their next PC or notebook.
So that’s the latest freelance thing to go up. I do other posts at the Geek Tech blog from time to time, and I’m not going to link all of them here. This one was much larger and more involved than most, so I thought I’d call it out.
Hey HP, Where’s My Driver?
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech on August 29, 2009
I have an HP Photosmart C5180 all-in-one network printer. It’s not an old model. HP is happy to still sell me overpriced supplies, for instance. I generally like the thing, it gets the job done. I don’t have demanding printing needs, really. Of course it complains about being low on ink far too often, and the ink costs too much, and all the other things people complain about with every printer out there.
My main complaint? No Windows 7 drivers. HP still has no Win7 drivers for any of their printers or all-in-ones. And they’re not alone. I don’t see Win7 drivers for Epson or Lexmark, or a host of other peripheral manufacturers, either.
Newegg’s 100 Under $100
Posted by jasoncross in PC Tech on August 11, 2009
Be sure to check out this promotion at one of my favorite online retailers, Newegg – 100 Deals Under $100. (no, this isn’t an “advertising post” and I don’t get a penny from Newegg. I just think there are some good deals there)
Yeah, some of those items are… lame. I was going to be diplomatic, but they’re lame. But hey, that’s a really good price on those Polk Audio bookshelf speakers. The CX300B might not be the best canal headphones Sennheiser makes, but for $18 freakin’ bucks with free shipping, you’d be nuts not to finally replace those crappy headphones that came with your iPod.