Saturday, March 25, 2006

Microsoft Origami

Microsoft Corp. unveiled its 'Origami' project Thursday, a paperback-book sized portable computer, which is a hybrid between a laptop PC and a host of mobile devices that the world's biggest software maker hopes will create an entirely new market.

Reactions are mixed.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

internet growth

the growth of the Internet in the U.S. has stalled. Despite cheaper prices and faster speeds, analysts expect uptake to creep just one percentage point this year, to 65%, and to only 67% by 2009.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

bndmod.exe

This was another annoying virus. [see log on 11/9/05] Panda found it but didn't remove it. And I couldn't delete it manually even in safe mode. AntiVir apparently got rid of some other viruses but bndmod.exe was still there. MoveOnBoot didn't work (couldn't even see the file). Finally I tried a WindowsME boot disk and that worked and I could delete the file.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Battle of the Microchip Giants

The greatest, nastiest, costliest and most enduring feud in Silicon Valley — and in all of high-tech — is the 30-year-old fight between Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices. What makes it particularly memorable — and bitter — is that it deals not only with products and markets but with friendships, personal animosities, even paternal loyalties.

Friday, March 10, 2006

LoJack

More than 90 percent of laptops stolen with LoJack installed have been recovered.

Friday, March 03, 2006

What We Don't Know?

In a special collection of articles published beginning 1 July 2005, Science Magazine and its online companion sites celebrate the journal's 125th anniversary with a look forward -- at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today. A special, free news feature in Science explores 125 big questions that face scientific inquiry over the next quarter-century. [from Cool Tricks and Trinkets]

The Good Earth

Frontier Multimedia presents their second show, "The Good Earth." It's a view of Earth from space - seen from a range of satellites, the space shuttle, and the International Space Station. The views are sometimes beautiful - such as clouds streaming past South Georgia Island - and sometimes bizarre, such as the alien landscape of Lake Disappointment, or the inland Mali delta. [from Cool Tricks and Trinkets]

save on ink

[3/3/06] On the face of it, the logic of buying refilled ink cartridges seems pretty obvious. A new HP 26A cartridge, for use in about two dozen Hewlett-Packard printers, costs $29 at Staples. Buy a $21 Staples-brand remanufactured unit and you save 28 percent. Go to Cartridge World and you pay $18.39, a 37 percent discount.

Walgreens is installing cartridge refilling machines in the photo department of 1,500 of its 5,120 drugstores. Office Depot is testing the same kiosks in Charlotte, N.C., and Minneapolis. These machines, called the Ink-O-Dem, cost about $40,000 and can refill a cartridge in about 2.5 minutes. "We cut out the middlemen," said Harry Nicodem, chief executive of TonerHead, the maker of the kiosk.

The automation gives Walgreens a price advantage: its HP 26A is $14.50. (You can also refill one yourself at home and, after you scrub the ink from your hands, save even more, 65 percent.)

End of story, right? You would go for the cheaper alternatives. But saving money is not just a matter of finding the lowest price. Two recent studies suggest that the more important consideration is the price per page printed, a number that is affected by the quality of a refilled cartridge.

Hewlett-Packard executives argue that you are wasting your money with refills, which is what you might expect the company to say. Manufacturers have a lot riding on a business model in which they sell ink cartridges that can cost a third of what the printer did.

The company has a point. QualityLogic, a Moorpark, Calif., test laboratory found that while new Hewlett-Packard cartridges had a 2 percent failure rate, 70 percent of remanufactured units did not last as long as promised. Hewlett commissioned the study, but Consumer Reports magazine came to a similar conclusion last May. Testers there found that in almost all cases, the refilled cartridges cost as much or more when evaluated on their per-page output.

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[10/30/04] you can get refilled ink cartridges here