Desktop-replacement laptops like the Gateway NE72206u have two major advantages over their smaller brethren, including lots of screen real estate and a full-size keyboard. For many users, these features are paramount, trumping other concerns such as portability and battery life. Of course, some systems take better advantage of their large size than others do. The NE72206u—with its 17.3-inch, 1600-by-900-pixel display and its large keyboard with full numeric keypad—falls somewhere in the middle, mainly because it’s not an overwhelming performer. But with a street price of just 500 bucks, we’re not complaining. Gateway’s NE72206u isn’t the lightest or most powerful laptop you’ll find, but this desktop replacement does offer a 17.3-inch display and a compelling price-to-performance ratio. The NE72206u is built around an AMD A6-5200 CPU with integrated AMD HD 8400 graphics. It also has 6GB of memory (500MB of which is allocated to the graphics), and a 500GB, 5400-rpm Toshiba MQ01ABD050 hard drive. Together those components helped the laptop produce a WorldBench 8.1 score of 100—the same as our reference-point notebook (a now aging ). Its battery life of 4 hours, 22 minutes, on the other hand, is quite good for a desktop replacement. In hands-on use, the NE72206u is smooth enough once Windows does its caching thing, but it doesn’t snap to as a machine based on a faster AMD A8/A10 or an Intel Core i3 processor would. Adding a solid-state drive would be an easy way to goose this system, but the NE72206u is a tease in that respect: Although it has a second drive bay just waiting to fulfill that fantasy, the bay lacks a SATA connector. That means you’d have to ditch the hard drive to add an SSD. At least you can easily access both the bays and the memory by loosening nine captive screws and removing one large panel on the bottom of the unit.
I've owned four Mac laptops over the last decade or so, but I've gone through countless power adapters. Invariably, the adapters fail because the cord frays where it meets the brick or the connector that plugs into the computer. Argh. So annoying. While you might not be able to prevent power adapters from failing, this simple hack could help extend the life of your power adapter or computer cables. Be sure to follow the instructions that came with the glue and heed any warnings it provides. You may want to protect your work surface from damage with a sheet of newspaper or plastic. And make sure you don't get glue on any connectors; otherwise, you might render the cable unusable. Hook the twist-tie around the end closest to the connector or power brick, then use a little glue to hold it in place.
A security vulnerability within the Knox software used by the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Note 3 could allow a malicious app to “listen in” on data transferred within the secured environment, researchers warned. The vulnerability was that the vulnerability was found in developer phones that weren’t “fully loaded with the extra software that a corporate client would use in conjunction with Knox,” the paper reported. So far, the Knox vulnerability has only been discovered on the Galaxy S4. Like third-party apps such as , Knox was developed with an eye for the so-called “BYOD” movement, where personal smartphones and other devices are allowed onto corporate networks. The problem is that those same corporate network administrators want to ensure that sensitive corporate data—which can include email, contacts, and calendar information—doesn’t wander outside the corporate firewall, intentionally or not. Samsung’s Knox creates an encrypted, virtualized space within the smartphone, so that apps such as email, phone, contacts, and others can be loaded securely. Data can be prevented, by policy, by being moved outside of Knox.
You're using way more data now than you used to. What's that mean for data caps?
The CyanogenMod Edition Oppo N1 costs a cool $600, but it's unlocked and comes preloaded with everybody's favorite custom Android ROM.
Ashampoo Burning Studio 14 is a nice, but extremely mild, upgrade to what is now one of the longest-lived and competent CD/DVD/multimedia burning suites available for PC. It offers all the usual features: CD/DVD/Blu-ray burning, jewel case and cover editing, movie and slideshow creation, plus backup from PC and mobile devices, and does so for an affordable $50 ($20 to upgrade from a previous version). New features in version 14 are the ability to write password-protected and encrypted discs, and one-click backup of mobile devices. Alas, the one-click backup seems to accept only an optical disc as a destination. Most of the backups that ABS performs may be stored anywhere, even across the network. Ashampoo Burning Studio14 is easy-peasy to use and pleasing to the eye. ABS 14 will create, burn, and also let you browse .iso, img, bin/cue, and its own .ashdisc image files. It also copies non-copy-protected discs and gives you the impression that it will do the same with copy-protected movie discs. It doesn’t, but it won’t say so until it runs into an unreadable sector, which can be well into the process.
Apple's new Mac Pro is finally here, but is it for you? That all depends on the apps you use and what expansion options you need.
I have a dream every holiday season. It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire. Christmas carols are echoing through the living room. Faithful friends who are dear to me gather near to me. The scene is something out of a Hallmark card. Now if only my fireplace would co-operate. Unfortunately, the fireplace in my house may as well have been stamped “For Display Purposes Only.” The fireplace seems to have been designed by people with only a passing familiarity with fire safety codes. It’s built shallow and the hearth is practically non-existant. What I’m trying to say is, one spark from the fireplace and my Christmas tree will be lit up all right, but probably not in the manner that local fire marshals would find advisable. So like millions of apartment dwellers or people who live in fireplace-free homes, it seems that I’ll be dreaming of a Yule log-free Christmas. That is, unless I take this holiday traditional digital.
Sales of Chromebooks exploded from basically nothing in 2012 to more than 20 percent of the U.S. commercial PC market, analyst firm NPD reported on Monday, while Windows PCs Macs remained flat at best. NPD estimated that, throughout all of 2013, 14.4 million desktops, notebooks, and tablets were sold through U.S. commercial channels, typically resellers. That compares to 16.4 million PCs, overall, sold in the U.S. during the third quarter alone—excluding tablets, according to IDC. All told, about 46.2 million PCs have been sold in the U.S. during 2013, IDC found. Within that segment, however, NPD reported some intriguing findings. Chromebooks, once largely the province of Acer and Samsung, have been embraced by Dell, HP, and others—not the least of which are paying customers. In 2012, Chromebook sales were “negligible,” NPD reported. But in the space of a single year, they climbed to 21 percent, NPD found, helping push overall notebook PC growth up by 28.9 percent. Windows notebooks, however, contributed nothing to that, as NPD found that growth was flat. Worse still, Macs actually declined, with combined sales of desktops and notebooks falling by 7 percent. Windows tablet sales tripled, albeit off what NPD called “a very small base”.
Quick: Check the display resolution on your laptop. Chances are it has a perfectly acceptable resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. If you're lucky, maybe 1920 x 1080 pixels, good enough for 1080p High Definition movie-watching.
Taiwanese computer maker Acer has named Jason Chen, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, as its new president and CEO, effective Jan. 1. Acer’s board of directors chose Chen as the company’s CEO Monday. Acer founder Stan Shih will continue to serve as chairman of the company, Acer said in a press release. Shih, in a statement, called Chen “the ideal executive to lead our transformation.”
Sony Corp. of America has agreed to sell its Gracenote music metadata business to the Tribune media conglomerate for $170 million. Gracenote maintains a database of music data that’s used by streaming media services, mobile apps and in-car entertainment systems for finding and recommending tracks and providing information about them to listeners. Among its better known customers are Apple and Spotify. Tribune plans to combine Gracenote with its own Tribune Media Services (TMS) division, which maintains a similar database about movies and TV shows. Among other uses, TMS’s database feeds the program guides of cable operators. With 550 million look-ups per day and metadata about more than 180 million tracks, Gracenote’s database is the largest source of music data in the world, according to Gracenote. The company has also been expanding into video information and provides that to some service providers in Europe. Gracenote was founded in 1998 as CDDB (Compact Disc Database) and changed its name to Gracenote in 2000. Sony’s U.S. business bought the company in 2008. Sony uses Gracenote in its Vaio PCs, Music Unlimited online service and other offerings, and the Tribune acquisition doesn’t end those arrangements.
A U.S. senator has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Target’s security practices after the large retailer reported a data breach affecting 40 million customer credit and debit cards. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, urged the agency to begin an immediate investigation. “If Target failed to adequately and appropriately protect its customers’ data, then the breach we saw this week was not just a breach of security; it was a breach of trust,” Blumenthal wrote in a . The breach could expose Target customers to “significant and potentially permanent harm,” Blumenthal wrote.”Those Target customers who have their data misused by hackers or thieves could lose their good credit and in turn their ability to purchase the goods and services they need for their well being and the well being of their families,” he added. Even customers whose stolen data will never ultimately be misused must live with the fear and uncertainty of knowing that it could be.” Blumenthal said he will push to give the agency more authority to penalize companies that have large data breaches. The FTC doesn’t have the authority to impose fines for data breaches.
People worry about losing their credit card number every time they buy something online. But as shows us, shopping at a brick and mortar store can be just as dangerous. After all, they too are connected to the Internet. We still don’t know exactly how the Target breach occurred. Last week, Target admitted that hackers had acquired the names, credit card numbers, and expiration dates from somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million customer credit cards. But in all fairness to Target, a large part of the problem comes from a nation-wide, antiquated credit card system. An by Jonathan Fahey called the United States “the juiciest target for hackers hunting credit card information,” and warned that things “will get worse before they get better.”
An iOS update to America's favorite disappearing message app added a few new features.
GoSmart users will be able to access Facebook and Facebook messenger without any monthly data plan.
The first iOS 7 jailbreak is here, but it arrived with some app piracy issues for Chinese users and no support for the Cydia app store.
Sharpen your marketing skill set by attending one of six in-depth workshops offered on March 10. Choose from SEO, Advanced AdWords Training, International Search Marketing, Social Content Distribution for SEO, In-House SEO, or Content Marketing. All Access + Workshop combo and Workshop-only passes...
It’s Christmas Eve, time for all good boys and girls to be expecting Santa Claus to be bringing them gifts. But where is jolly old St. Nick on his journey? Once again, there are two major services tracking him: NORAD and Google. Below, our annual review of the tracking sites and methods of...
Excel is that must-have tool for managing, analyzing and reporting on paid search campaigns that is impossible to know too well. Many of us are self-taught — picking up tips and tricks here and there — which makes it even harder to know what shortcuts and secret powers we’re...
With so much of link building focused on creating actual relationships these days, the idea that you can build high-quality links without people seems preposterous. Yes, I know there are still things like directories and post submissions but, come on… a real person has to approve those, right?...
Search marketing friends — welcome, welcome! It’s time for another installment of our Search Engine Land Year In Review series. We’ve toured through the top news stories and those that were most tweeted – now it’s time to scope out the articles, tutorials, resources,...
‘Twas the night before Christmas in the search marketing department and SEM Director Scrooge was heading out hours before his staff. “Director Scrooge,” said one of the young SEM analysts, Tiny Tim. “It’s Christmas Eve. The gang and I wanted to know if we could get a paid search management tool for...
Forrester Research recently released a report called Put Distribution at the Heart of Your Content Marketing, which addresses an issue of increasing importance within the content marketing world. Many marketers are very focused on writing top quality content. The process of brainstorming, creating,...
Yesterday, John Marbach exposed the popular music side, Rap Genuis, for starting an “affiliate” program in order to get unnatural links pointing to their web site. After it was exposed, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, said, “we’re aware and looking into...
Today’s Google logo includes a Happy Holidays greeting in time for Christmas Eve. Using a simple holiday portrait of a horse-drawn sled riding through the snow, the logo serves up results for the search phrase ‘Happy Holidays’. This year’s logo is a much more...