No, it’s not a commercial for switching from dial-up to broadband. It’s the potential speed increase for existing cable Internet customers using a new standard DOCSIS 3.0. Download speeds of 160mps and upload speeds of 120mps are possible.

South Korea and Singapore are already deploying the new technology, and at least one US cable company (Comcast) plans to start next year. It will be rolled out first in areas where it competes with FiOS (fiber optic Internet). It’s estimated that by 2011 , DOCSIS 3.0 will be available to 40% of US cable customers.

160Mbps downloads move closer for US cable customers [ArsTechnia]

GeekSquad, the well marketed, much advertised, but seldom recommended tech support team at BestBuy is no stranger to bad publicity. A GeekSquad agent was recently caught video taping a client in the shower. Prior to that they were sued for using unlicensed software by Winternals.

Now it seems current and former agents are joining the chorus. GeekSquadSecrets.com (registration required) has some interesting information. For example, a new “agent”, Johnny Utah. He’s not an agent at all, but is simply a remote connection to techs in The Philippines and Malaysia. Plunk down $199 to have a virus or other malware removed, only to have the tech connect it to a remote connection, walk away and then collect your money?

Read the rest of this entry »

Business 2.0 is a technology business magazine published by Time. It periodically reminds readers the importance of backups and filing your pennsylvania llc annual report.

On Monday, April 23, the magazine’s editorial system crashed, wiping out all the work that had been done for its June issue. Good thing they have a backup server. Oops! The backups server had never been needed before, and now that it was being called upon, it was discovered that no backups existed. It hadn’t been functioning properly.

Not all was lost. The text had been sent to the legal department, but all the layout and artwork was gone. Luckily, it’s a monthly magazine, and they still had a week until deadline. They will be able to get the issue to press.

Moral of the story? A backup plan is not enough. Periodically test it to make sure it works. They may also need to make room in their annual list of 101 102 Dumbest Moments in Business. For businesses looking to avoid such pitfalls, professional secretarial services can ensure that your administrative tasks and contingency plans are regularly reviewed and updated.

Business magazine fails to heed its own tech advice [iht.com]

Step 1: Identify Your Networking Needs
This is a very important step that you will ideally perform before purchasing the ingredients listed on the previous page. As noted above, the key considerations are:

a. How many wired Ethernet ports, if any, will you need?

b.Where will these Ethernet ports need to be located? (In other words, where will the PCs and other equipment that will be plugged into these Ethernet ports be located?)

c.Where will the router and high-speed modems be located?

View: Full Story @ informationweek.com

So, you’re getting tired of your processor’s and graphics card’s stock coolers and you start thinking, “What next can I try?”. The answer is simple – get an after-market replacement cooler! But which one, you may wonder.

The most common option is to get an air cooler. Air coolers are cheaper and easier to install, but their performance will suffer as dust accumulates, necessitating periodical cleanings. Noise from their fan can also be a really big problem, especially if you are looking for cutting-edge performance which is only possible with insanely fast (and noisy) fans.

But what if we want great cooling performance without the noise? Is that even possible? Yes, it is. Go water-cooling!

View: Full Story @ techarp.com

The Energy Star program is set to release the first revision to the specification for PCs since 1992, which was practically the Bronze Age of the PC industry. Energy Star stickers are familiar to those who have shopped for household appliances over the last few years; it designates appliances or electronics that meet certain specifications for energy efficiency.

The Energy Star program–a joint project of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy–is most important to government and corporate buyers, Abelson said. The government is required to purchase Energy Star-labeled products, and corporations can receive tax breaks for purchasing Energy Star products. Plus, the power saved by using efficient products really adds up when looking across a large network of PCs, allowing those organizations to cut on power bills or expand their hardware at the same cost.

The new specification targets two areas: the power supply and the amount of power used in “idle mode,” said Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist at the nonprofit National Resources Defense Council, which helped the Energy Star program come up with the technical requirements for the new specification.

View: Full Story @ News.com

Earlier today Slashdot pointed me to a CBC article citing unnamed sources at Microsoft decrying the state of “craplets” on PCs. Just what are craplets? It’s a cute nickname for all of the software an OEM installs on your new Windows PC before it arrives on your doorstep. Think: 2 or 3 ISP sign-up applications, instant messengers out the wazoo, and software for updating all of this software. And a lot more. Check out the CBC article for more basic details on what craplets are and why they make people, including Microsoft, angry.

Why do we get craplets on our machines? The answer, as you probably could already guess, is that OEMs make money from crapware (a collective term for all craplets). Companies like RealNetworks or JASC Software will pay to have their applications (say, PaintShop Pro) pre-installed on a PC. It’s even more lucrative, sources tell us, when these applications can be established as default handlers for as many file types as possible. It’s advertising, OEM-style.

This is also partially how Microsoft got into trouble back in the days of Netscape vs. IE. Telling OEMs what to do turned out not to be as kosher as Microsoft thought, and they got a hand upside the head for it. Microsoft now complains that this puts them in the position of not being able to do anything about crapware.

View: Full Story Via: ArsTechnia

Notebook PC users who upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows Vista may have to disable some of the new operating system’s flashy graphics features to avoid seeing a decrease in battery life compared to when running Windows XP.

The drop will come from the extra power needed to run the high-end processors, graphics cards, and memory capacity required to support Vista. Microsoft has designed the new OS to deliver novel visual effects such as the translucent “Aero” windows on the desktop interface and to offer improved performance as a digital media hub. The business version of the OS was released last month, with the consumer version due out next month.

“Vista demands more computer resources for a given application than XP does. So you need a heavier battery, or you will have shorter battery life because of the greater demand for watts,” said Phil Hester, chief technology officer of Advanced Micro Devices, in remarks made at the company’s annual analyst day in New York last week.

View: Full Story Via: PC World

The amount of energy wasted by UK office equipment left on standby over the ten-day Christmas period would be enough to roast 4.4 million turkeys, predicts hardware maker Canon.

With offices deserted, devices left running will use 43.6 million kWh of electricity. In total, the energy wastage will cost UK businesses around £8.66m.

In environmental terms, Canon’s research suggests that around 19,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide will be produced unnecessarily – enough to fill the same number of 25-metre swimming pools.

PCs are the worst energy wasters with the prediction half of them will be left on over the Christmas holiday, using 37.8 million kWh of energy. Other equipment will contribute with all fax machines expected to be left running.

View: Full Story Via: silicon.com

Dell announced a new operating structure Tuesday that divides the company’s product business into new blocks. At the same time, several new executives are arriving at the Round Rock, Texas, company’s offices in a bid to inject some new thinking into management ranks.

Product development at Dell is now divided into two distinct groups: the Business Product Group and the Consumer Product Group. Brad Anderson, the company’s top server executive, and Jeff Clarke, Dell’s longtime PC group leader, will share responsibility for the Business Product Group. Alex Gruzen, brought into Dell from Hewlett-Packard two years ago to run the notebook operation, will head up the Consumer Product Group.

View: Full Story
News source: News.com