Start your PC faster with Argus Boot Accelerator
Lengthy boot times must be one of the greatest irritations you can have with any PC. Not only can Windows take an age to load, but then the hard drive thrashing can continue for minutes, in some situations, slowing down everything else you want to do.
Investigating exactly which programs are being launched along with Windows is a good first step to resolving this situation, of course. A tool such as Autoruns will reveal all, and disabling or uninstalling surplus applications should make a difference.
Apple pays homage to Steve Jobs
Today marks one year since former Apple CEO Steve Jobs left this world, and in commemoration to its former leader and founder the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation changed its front page, replacing it with a video detailing a few key moments from the man's life.
The black-and-white video slowly transitions the late Steve Jobs from one of his favorite Wayne Gretzky quotes to the iMac then to the more popular iPod and iPhone devices that have revolutionized the MP3 and smartphone market. The video ends in typical Steve Jobs fashion, delivering one of his powerful speeches.
Remembering Steve Jobs
Apple's cofounder died one year ago today, and there will be plenty of headlines looking back at him and how the company he left behind performed since. I decided that the best way to remember him is to move on. Jobs is gone. At GigaOM, Eric Ogg opines: "Why the tech industry needs to let Steve Jobs rest in peace". It's good advice, and much better than stories suggesting Jobs would fire CEO Tim Cook for the iOS 6 Mapocalypse or how he would have delayed iPhone 5, among others (I've seen them this week).
It's better to focus on the living, not the dead, nor is it sensible to let his ghost haunt by way of speculation and guesswork. Move on people. Live for the moment, and plan for the future. Still, it's obligatory do something for such an iconic figure, and BetaNews has posted so many stories already. So my homage is simple: Links to a collection of our stories about Jobs written since his death.
Steve Jobs wouldn't back my private mission to the moon
Today marks a year since the death of Steve Jobs -- a year that has changed my life in many ways with at least two of those ways yet to be announced. The anniversary seems to be an excuse for anyone with a byline who knew or even bumped into Jobs to throw out a reminiscence or two, and I’m not immune to that disease. So here’s the story of when I tried to get Jobs and Apple to back my Moon Shot.
I’ve been trying since 2007 to mount a private unmanned mission to the Moon, though five years in it feels sometimes like I could have walked there by now. It turns out that the greatest challenge to reaching the moon isn’t technical but financial. Even though my Moon project is by far the cheapest one around, the trick is to raise money at a faster rate than the budget expansion that inevitably happens as you face realities along the way.
Is junk cluttering up your hard drive? Try JFRemover
There are hundreds of tools that promise they’re the ideal solution for cleaning up your hard drive, but in our experience the vast majority are a huge disappointment, achieving little more than Windows own Disk Cleanup applet.
And so our expectations of JFRemover (a brand new temporary file remover) were, well, low. To put it mildly.
It's time to stop bufferbloat
This is my promised update on bufferbloat, the problem I write about occasionally involving networks and applications that try to improve the flow of streaming data, especially video data, over the Internet but actually do the opposite, defeating TCP/IP’s own flow control code that would do the job much better if only it were allowed to. I first mentioned bufferbloat in January 2011 and it is still with us but the prognosis is improving, though it will probably take years to be fully resolved.
If you read my last column on LagBuster, you know it’s a hardware-based workaround for some aspects of bufferbloat aimed especially at gamers. LagBuster is a coping strategy for one type of bufferbloat that afflicts a population of people who aren’t willing to wait for a systemic cure. LagBuster works for gamers and might be a workaround for other kinds of low-latency data, but that’s still to be determined.
Digital music sales set to break record
This week one of my colleagues posted to group chat: "The CD player turns 30". To which I asked: "What's a CD?" And someone else took the question seriously: "Compact Disc". Duh, I know that. But does anyone younger than 10? It's a serious question given a prediction Nielsen makes.
The analyst firm expects record-breaking digital music tracks sales in 2012 -- that means in excess of last year's 1.3 billion. The number already exceeds 1 billion, and Nielsen forecasts digital album sales will grow 15 percent year over year. My, how times have changed.
Save the date (or maybe not) -- Windows Phone 8 launches October 29
I must take a moment to share the love -- the exact same given me by the Windows Phone team offered in return. Nothing! Bwhahahaha. Microsoft sent out invitations to a Windows Phone 8 event -- hey, you know it's the launch -- for October 29. Not that I received one. (Yes, I checked spam messages.) Apologies to the good editors at Wired. I lifted the invite image from you. It reads "save the date" -- well, I guess not.
The phone OS event comes just three days after Microsoft launches Windows 8 and Surface tablets in New York City. I have three sisters, and their birthdays are October 26 and 29. Should I regard these product launches as presents or distractions, since Microsoft will have me too busy writing about the new stuff to celebrate with them? Well, girls, there's always Google+ Hangout or, maybe, just maybe, Skype. :)
Hiku replaces pen and paper without getting caught in the 'screen trap'
Halfway through its short appearance on Kickstarter, the little white device known as Hiku is just under halfway to its goal of $80,000. Led by former Palm product manager Rob Katcher, this deceptively simple device carves out a niche of its own by making an everyday task easier than even a smartphone could.
The world of consumer technology is dominated by Swiss Army Knives; moderately powerful computers that handle dozens of different tasks ranging from communications to productivity to the creative arts. But, as the age-old colonial American saying goes, the jack of all trades is the master of none.
Could five new Nexus devices possibly debut November 5th?
For the second time in a week -- once being a rarity -- I write about new Android device rumors. There's renewed buzz about five Nexus branded devices coming within the month. Talk of five, instead of the typical one, started in May from Wall Street Journal. Soon after, writing for Talk Android, Robert Nazarian claimed that five new Nexus devices would come on November 5, which is the fifth anniversary of Android's release -- well, in beta. The OS wasn't officially available for public consumption until the T-Mobile G1 launched about 10 months later.
This rumor actually makes sense to me, not that I really believe it. Nazarian cited a single source and hasn't much pursued the topic since. But it's oh-so convenient the idea that five Nexus devices will debut as a fifth-anniversary thing. It's a tempting enough rumor. Do you believe it, or even hope it's true?
Acer Iconia W700 Windows 8 Pro tablet is surprisingly affordable
Three days after HP announced the business-oriented ElitePad 900, Acer's formally announced flagship Windows 8 Pro-based tablet -- the Iconia W700, sporting Intel's Ivy Bridge processors gets pricing details. It is right where Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer suggested for Microsoft Surface. Coincidence or not?
The new Acer Iconia W700 boasts an 11.6-inch 1080p IPS display with an 1920 by 1080 resolution powered by an integrated, Intel HD Graphics 4000 video card paired with a Core i3 or a more powerful Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor, with a yet undisclosed amount of RAM. For storage it uses a 64GB or 128GB SSD that reportedly boots up in as little as 6 seconds, with resume from standby happening in just 1.5 seconds. On the back there is a 5MP auto-focus camera capable of 1080p video recording and on the front what appears to be a less than 2MP camera; that is known to record 720p video. And there's more...
LibreOffice 3.6.2 stomps bugs dead
With more and more computer users counting the pennies, the move to lower cost and free software gains momentum. Microsoft Office may still be the world’s most popular office suite, but there is a growing user base that has turned to one of the free alternatives that have been gathering strength in recent years. LibreOffice is one such suite, and the latest version addresses a series of known bugs and helps to improve stability.
Although there are no major new features or options to be found in LibreOffice 3.6.2 – this crown was taken by the 3.6 release -- there have been improvements in a number of areas which increase the overall stability of the program and make it a piece of software that more businesses are likely to look to as a free office suite. 3.6.2 includes bug fixes for both the Windows and OS X versions of the suite.
Microsoft's $300M Barnes and Noble investment promises new Windows 8 Nook app
Book retailer Barnes and Noble announced on Thursday that its partnership with Microsoft in a new limited liability company called Nook Media LLC is complete and ready to go ahead of Windows 8's launch.
Barnes and Noble first announced it was considering a spin-off of its digital content business in January 2012. Three months later, the partnership with Microsoft was announced, and the software giant pledged $300 million to the venture, which would encompass Barnes and Noble's digital content business: e-books, e-textbooks, and e-periodicals.
Firefox goes native Windows 8
Mozilla has unveiled its first public preview of how Firefox will look when run using Windows 8’s new tile-based interface. Firefox Metro UI Preview is based on an offshoot Nightly build of Firefox, codenamed “Elm”, and can be downloaded and tested now on PCs running Windows 8.
This early preview provides a fully functional web browser, complete with multi-touch support on compatible displays. However, as expected at such an early stage in its development, not all planned features have yet been implemented, while the Nightly tag indicates this is a largely untested build.
ASUS Transformer Prime and Infinity Pad receive Jelly Bean
Great news yet again! After Acer updated its flagship Android tablet, the Iconia Tab A700, ASUS released the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the Transformer Prime and its flagship Transformer Pad Infinity Android tablets.
The update bumps up the Android version to 4.1.1, build number JRO03C and comes in at a rather hefty 455-465MB and a more modest 314-324MB for the Transformer Pad Inifinity and Transformer Pad, respectively, depending on the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) that dictates which update must be downloaded.
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