March, 2009

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 - New Option Available

Dell isn’t shipping the Inspiron Mini 10 yet, but they say it will be shipping on the 15th of April. For a paltry 35$ USD you can update the display to 1366×768. This is currently the highest resolution offered on any netbook seen to date. This isn’t offered on Dell.ca, I guess us Canadians will have to wait. Either way, I would wait for the next generation of Netbooks, as these still aren’t using the N280 1.66Ghz processor. As more of these products get released, the more prices will drop on the older models. Patience is always a virtue, when dealing with technology at least.

NS

Western Digital bought SiliconSystems

SiliconSystems will become a business unit of Western Digital manufacturing drives along side the caviar line. Western DIgital bought SiliconSystems for 65 million dollars. An insert below describes why the company was a good buy for Western Digital.

“SiliconSystems has developed LifeEST and SiSMART to measure and calculate how long an SSD will last. LifeEST is the industry’s first endurance calculation methodology that’s independent of how an SSD is used. SiSMART is patented technology that actively monitors SSD performance and measures usage in real time. They work together to determine an SSD’s useable life.”

This purchase instantly put Western Digital into the SSD Race, and possibly ahead.

Read the full story here.

NS

Windows 7 and Netbooks

Seems that Microsoft wants to gear “Windows 7 Starter Edition” for the netbook.

Here is an inserpt from a Engaget

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Microsoft also says that’s it’s going out of its way to make Windows 7 as accommodating for netbook manufacturers as possible, adding that it has cleaned up the system tray and “made some other concessions for the OEMs to help with branding.”

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They want to replace all the Linux based netbooks with “Windows 7 Starter Edition”, they also said that we should be seeing some 200$ netbooks by the holidays! I say bring it on.

NS

‘Psybot’ worm infects home routers.

Linksys and Netgear routers are the most highly infected, first being spotted infecting Netcomm NB5 modem/routers in Austrailia.

The most recent “worm” “version 18″ targets a wide variety of devices, and contains the shellcode of over 25 different Linksys models and 10 Netgear models, including 15 other various cable and DSL modems.

Things you’ll notice in your router config is that ports 22, 23, and 80 will be blocked. If you do notice this, hard reset the router and reset the admin password. Since its mostley brute force that is used, make the password case sensitive and include numbers and symbols if you like.

Get the full story here

Silverlight 3 Mobile and Deep Zoom

You have to check this out… Hard Rock Café is using the Deep Zoom technology to power the site showcasing their huge collection of memorabilia.

Deep Zoom is basically allows users to view super high resolution imagery from 3MP to Gigapixel scans, all without using huge amounts of bandwidth. Silverlight 3 also introduced support for multi-touch - the ability to poke and pull applications, as you would on the iPhone using two fingers, for example.

All this will be supported on windows mobile platforms, which is already supported via desktop browsing.

Internet Explorer 8 gone Gold

Well Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 as of 12pm EST.

You can download it here.

If you interested in reading the press conference then check that out here.

The following is an insert from the above mentioned link.

“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

There is also a quick tour that you can take before downloading. Check it out here.

Battery Extender for Apple Iphone/Itouch

Okay so who wants to extend there battery life up to 42 hours(7 hours video) but doesn’t mind adding a little bulk to their phone/device? Well Mophie seems to have the answer, check out the full story here.

All the details for all the different batteries can be found on www.mophie.com or go directly to the section that I am talking about here.

Xbox Contest on ITKnowledge Exchange!

Looks like there’s a new contest going on here, just ask 5 IT related knowledge questions and gain the most IT Knowledge points by answering questions and you can win one of three Xbox Prizes! Its has already started and is will be ending April 30th

The three prizes are, the Xbox 360 Elite(120 GB hard drive, Special black console, HDMI cables, controller),  Xbox 360(60 GB hard drive, Packed with features, Standard/HD AV cable), and an Xbox Arcade. More details can be found here, but most of you know what an Xbox is and what it is capable of…

Check out the blog by Jenny here

Here is the link to join IT Knowledge Exchange. So join up, start asking questions and start answering them.

Asus Eee PC 1008HA (Netbook) and 1000HE(N280 Netbook)

Asus just launched this cool new Netbook.

Some specs are as follows *

• A 92%-scaled keyboard
• 1″ Thick
• 2.4 lbs
•  multi-touch touchpad,
• Instant key (for quick access to Wi-Fi and the touchpad lock)
• Digital Array Mic
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Wireless connectivity options (802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, 3.75G** and WiMAX**).
• Equipped with SRS Premium Sound technology for pristine audio playback quality.
• and rumor has it that it will probably carry Intel’s Atom processor (N280) and the new GN40 chipset.

Endgaget has some photos of it here.

This just in Asus says they have the worlds first N280(confirmed) Netbook the Eee 1000HE… here and their promo page here, I might just have to wait for this one to come to Canada… or ill order it from the US…

NS

*subject to change

ESX Server not responding

What happens if you esx server stops reporting its memory and cpu usage? What if you cannot connect to any VM’s? I just ran into this issue today. What you need to do is restart the vmware-mgmt service on the ESX Console.

What you will need to do is connect to the ESX Service console via Putty, once there login as a user who has root access, then type su - and hit enter, now put in the root username and password. Once you are connected as the root user, type this in “service mgmt-vmware restart” This will restart the Vmware Virtual Center Management Agent and allow you to gain back control of your ESX Server.

NS