Tag: pc magazine

Acer and Samsung Chrome Netbooks Announced

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, CR-48, Google Chrome3 Comments


I saw the news this morning on Twitter from Editor for PC Magazine Lance Ulanoff:

Google: ACER introing netbook-sized ChromeBook #$349. Samsung’s ChromeBook: $429 for Wi-Fi Avail June 15. #io2011

I was way off on the price.  I figured that since the Google Chrome OS is a browser-based only computer that they would sell a Google Chrome OS Netbook for $150-$200.  I never thought they would sell as high as they are.

Chrome OS Site also reports the specs for the Samsung netbook along with other pictures of the netbook from different angles.  The Samsung Chrome OS netbook will sell in WiFi only for $429 and 3G for $499.

I have been using my CR-48 Google Chrome OS netbook since mid December when they first started shipping and I love it.  I still use my desktop computer but only for things that I can’t use my CR-48 for like photo editing with Gimp, balancing my checkbook via Microsoft Money and playing Lord of the Rings Online.  My CR-48 has basically become my default computer for everything else, as it was supposed to be for the pilot program.

I cannot say that I agree with those prices because you can get a netbook for the same price with Windows installed and be able to install software that you want on it to do everything my desktop computer can do.  The Google Chrome OS is internet only.  You can get the internet on a Windows netbook so why pay that much money?

It’s a great operating system, I just don’t think it’s that great that you would pay $500 for it.  I think that they will go down in price eventually so I would wait until they are a more reasonable price.

Lite-On Smart Erase Technology

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

Yesterday I bought a brand new dvd burner to replace the one in my tower that doesn’t work anymore. I was looking at it at the Tiger Direct website and I noticed something that slipped by before. Smart Erase.

I guess I’m behind the times once again because this is not something I’ve ever heard of. I don’t have to explain what it means for you folk that are current with technology but for those of us who have been hiding in a shell for god knows how long, I will try to explain it as best as I can.

Say you have burned some highly classified information onto a disc and you are afraid that someone might find it and use it against you. Well, if that is the case then you live a very dangerous life my friend. For those of you who just want to delete files that are obsolete and you don’t want to keep the discs but you don’t want anyone else to access them either then this is for you.

You put the disc into the drive, select quick or full erase and it makes the disc totally unreadable. Quick erase is fast and it makes the disc unreadable but it doesn’t eradicate 100% of the data. If you are that paranoid then use Full erase. It takes a lot longer to completely erase a disc but for you it’s worth the time.

How it will work for me is when I do my dvd backups for reformatting my hard drive, when I’ve put all the backups back on my computer then I can erase the discs and toss them out. I’ve made backups for reformatting in the past but ended up either keeping the discs out of fear that someone might find them or breaking them and risk cutting myself. This will make it easier to just toss them afterwards.

I’m glad that I found that in the description for my new DVD burner. I just wish I were more informed than I am about new technology. I guess since I stopped reading PC World magazine years ago I stopped learning about all the cool new things available. But, I have PC Magazine now on my Nook so that will keep me better informed. Maybe.

UPDATE: When I wrote this I was under the impression it worked on DVD+/-r’s but it doesn’t.  So if you use a RW disc then there is no reason to “toss it out” as I said 2 paragraphs ago.

Nook Color with Touch Screen

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Nook, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

I think I’m going to have a heart attack and die right now.  I just got an email from Barnes & Noble with this subject:

“Introducing NOOKcolor — The Amazing Sequel to the NOOK You Love.”

Oh really?  Are you joking me?  If they could’ve told me this in September BEFORE I spent $150 on the Nook Wifi, I would’ve had an incentive to wait a little bit longer.  This new NOOKcolor is $249 and has many more features than my current Nook doesn’t have.  Such as it’s a color touch screen, you can see magazines and newspaper in color, kids books come alive at the touch of a finger (like I care) and one thing I saw in the video when I clicked the link in the email is that you can have it read to you and it’s NOT a robot voice like the Kindle.

This one is way better than mine because it can do portrait and landscape which the Kindle can do but the Nook I have can’t.  It has an 8GB card along with the ability to add another.  Mine only has 1GB but I can still add to it.  Although, I don’t see that I would ever need to but with the NOOKcolor I can see needing a bigger card because I’m sure the books with audio are bigger files.

Another cool feature is videos in your books…  In the video they showed a cookbook and you can read the recipe but then the image for it is a video where you can see how to make the recipe.  That would be so cool.  What would be even cooler is newspapers where the image for the article is an actual video of what happened.  The newspaper could set up a news station type set with anchors who read the articles with video of what happened at the scene, just like the news on tv has.  Or a magazine could have a video of the interview with the stars and their ads could be a video commercial.

I see in the Barnes & Noble website a new newsstand which is “coming soon” so I think they are going to add more magazines finally.  Right now they only have a few.  I subscribe to PC Magazine for $1.49 per month (or per magazine) but I was hoping they would have a broader choice.  With the NOOKcolor they might have more magazines and I think that would be great for Darrin who loves to get the magazines from the grocery store.  I think if he had a subscription to them then he would save so much money.  But that means he has to get the new NOOKcolor, or he can use Nook for PC.

Well, it’s obvious that I can’t afford to buy it, I can barely buy groceries right now but who knows, maybe by this time next year they will have a NOOKcolor 2 for $149 that I can save up for.  Hey it could happen.  Last year the Nook was $249 and then it came down to $149 this year and that’s the one I have.  So maybe I’ll bide my time for another year and save money so I can get the NOOKcolor for Darrin for his birthday, that is if they go down.

I don’t have to have color, I really like my Nook.  I think that the new NOOKcolor is an LCD screen, it looks lit up like the little LCD screen at the bottom of mine.  I don’t think I can read from an LCD screen.  It’s too much for my eyes.  Darrin would like that I think, last night he went to read a book on my Nook and he asked me when the screen was going to light up for him to read it.  I had to tell him that it doesn’t light up, it’s e-ink, not LCD.

PC Magazine for Nook

On By Michel McDonaldIn NookLeave a comment

Last night I was thinking about the customer reviews on PCMagazine for Nook and then I was thinking about how they gave the Los Angeles Times such a bad review but I bought an issue at .75¢ to see for myself and it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be. So I thought, why not try the 14 day trial for PC Magazine. I only get 1 magazine a month and I have 14 days to cancel, I get to sample a free magazine at no cost to me and I don’t have to keep paying.

I could have bought the 1 issue at $2.49 and been out a couple bucks just to check out how it looks or I could get the trial and not lose anything. I am so glad I chose the latter because it is very nicely done. The subscription is only $1.49 per month or per magazine if you will and I get it automatically on the first of every month. Not bad.

I used to get PC World magazine years ago and I had that subscription for I think 10 years but canceled because I couldn’t afford it anymore. Also I had stopped reading it so every issue that came to the house got ignored. I might look at a couple of articles but I didn’t really give much time to it as I used to. They didn’t want to let me go, they fought for me but I had made my mind up, I just couldn’t afford it. Eventually they gave up. If they had PC World for Nook I would gladly start my subscription back up.

I read a few articles this morning of the PC Magazine and although they were good, they weren’t as good as PC World. But it’s the best that I can get for $1.49 per month and since it’s the only PC magazine that is in e-subscription for the Nook then it’s all I got.

It’s Hard to Convince People

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Gadgets, News, NookLeave a comment

Ever try to convince someone that some “thing” is better than the other? It’s very difficult especially when that person is adamant that they do not want this new thing. They give you an excuse and you have an answer but they give you another excuse and you have an answer for that too. They can’t win this argument lol.

I’m trying to convince Darrin that when I buy my Nook he might get some use out of it too. Not just books but newspapers and magazines as well.

He said that he likes to read a regular newspaper and magazine because he can find things easily but my response was that you can find things much quicker with a Nook. All you have to do is type in a keyword and it will find every instance of that word. Or you can highlight articles that you want to go back to and then go into your highlights to find them.

He said that he likes the feeling of a newspaper or magazine, yet he has trouble letting them go. When he buys a magazine he doesn’t like to toss them afterwards because he paid a lot of money for them. Have you seen the cost of magazines? My god, those things are expensive.

A LA Times newspaper is $1 a day and I think it’s $2+/- on Sundays. Well, if he got a subscription to the LA Times on the Nook, it’s only $10 per month. I don’t know if that includes Sundays though. I checked to see how much home delivery of the LA Times is and it’s about $11.96 per month. You are only saving $1.96 per month but that’s $23.52 per year and you are saving trees at the same time. If you were to recycle all those newspapers you probably wouldn’t get that $1.96 back for a month worth of newspapers since they are thinning out so much these days. Then again I don’t know that for sure, they pay you by weight, not by how many you have.

I was looking at the eMagazines they have and they really aren’t anything that I would be interested in and Darrin never reads what they have available. The only one that would interest me is PC Magazine but I wouldn’t read it that much. He likes magazines like Time, People and Architectural Digest. Those aren’t available for Nook. So since nothing really good is available I won’t even try to convince him on that aspect.

But the key points that I was trying to convince him on is that you can look up articles by keywords, highlighting and making notes. When you write a note in an article you can refer back to your notes and it will bring that particular article up.  He said he could look something up fast in a magazine or newspaper but I bet him anything that I could find it faster on a nook.

He goes to Church, not every Sunday but most Sundays and he loves to bring his own bible that he had his name engraved on. There is no way I can convince him with a Bible for Nook. He saw how one guys bible was weathered and falling apart and all this stuff was highlighted and he made a remark about how he couldn’t wait for his bible to be as used as his was. So that I won’t even try to convince him of. Besides, when he is at Church is the perfect time for me to read and I wouldn’t like it if he had my Nook during those times lol.

There are so many things that make me giddy about electronic toys that he could care less about. Although when I actually get it he might feel differently but until then he couldn’t care less despite how much I try to convince him.

He was impressed when I told him that you could make the text a lot bigger to make it easier to read and the fact that you could visit websites and write emails and I could even blog from the Nook.  Although I don’t know if I would want to because of the touchscreen keyboard but if we were visiting family it would be a lot easier than using the mobile dashboard with my PSP.  I could also type more than I can on the mobile version.

There are some things that you have to see for yourself and when we get to the Barnes & Noble next week he can see how cool they are with the display that they have.  He’ll realize they are a lot better than he wants to give them credit for.  He’ll see.