Have Laptop Will Travel

Comcast recently announced that they might consider bandwidth metering. One of the reasons being cited for this move is to solve network congestion it has been suffering, which is being blamed on torrent users, video downloaders and file sharers. As a company, I understand that they would see this as an easy solution to their problem. But as a user I am incensed.

Internet availability has transcended initial impressions for it as a fad or an optional service. I think it has now entered the level of a utility. Every home should have a stable internet connection for a variety of reasons that are just too many to mention here. Metering bandwidth defeats the very intrinsic nature of the internet as an always on connection that allows you to access information and whatever else the internet offers whenever you need it and at whatever amounts of data you download. Comcast should realize that the concept of bandwidth metering is something that users loathe. AOL has done it before. Compuserve has, too. And the consensus has been unanimous—bandwidth metering sucks.

I’m sure that Comcast can find other more creative ways of solving whatever problems they have without limiting the amount of data their subscribers get from the internet. If they don’t reconsider this option, they are in for a world of pain as internet users are a very vocal bunch.

Laptops are considered cookie cutter products—you only get to choose from the specifications released by the company. There is no way that you get the level of customization when you assemble your own desktop PC.

But OCZ Technology thinks that it can change this view by introducing the build-it-yourself notebook PC. The company is releasing the DIY Gaming Notebook that aims to target itself to users who want to customize the parts that they put in their notebooks. The line starts off with the basics—you get a 15.4 inch WXGA display, Intel PM965 chipset, GeForce 8600MGT with 512MB, and an 8x DVD±R/RW combo drive that can read and write four layer DVDs. All other components that are put inside the notebook will be up to the user though. They get to install the CPU, memory, hard drive and OS of their own choosing. They can even have the choice of getting it from OCZ or from other parties.

This is a definite step in the right direction. Truthfully, other companies have thought up of the same idea before but I think the market is really mature now and it can now handle this concept now.

OCZ has not yet released any pricing for their notebooks, hopefully, it will be within a range that will really make it more acceptable to more users.

I’ve used HSDPA mobile broadband technology before and I have to say, this is one technology that I have high hopes for. The ability to surf the internet as long as you have a mobile signal is a great boon for laptop warriors like myself who need access to the internet constantly. At present, the only way you can use HSDPA broadband is by connecting an HSDPA phone to a laptop or buying one of those expensive HSDPA modems.

But this will soon change with Ericsson’s announcement to include high-speed HSDPA technology in future next gen laptops from Dell.

Dell announced that beginning the second quarter of 2008, and will be the second major company to use Ericsson’s technology. Lenovo has earlier announced that it will use Ericsson’s technology. One cool thing about the Ericsson tech is that a GPS component is going to be built into the modules, which means location services is bundled with the tech.

Another UMPC has been spotted in the market. The Astone UMPC looks to battle it out with the leader ASUS with its quite formidable specs.

The Astone UMPC also features a 7-inch screen that can display up to 600 x 480. The machine depends on VIA components. Its processor is a VIA C7-M that is rated at between 1.5 to 2ghz speed. Default RAM is 1gb, and the hard drive capacity is a whopping 30GB — compare that to the ASUS’ 8gb SSD feature. The Astone UMPC ships without an OS, so it’s up to you what kind of OS you want to use.

The Astone, which is priced similarly to the ASUS EEE, has what it takes to threaten ASUS’ dominance in the UMPC market.

After delaying the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 because of a bug, Microsoft finally released it again thinking that they’ve ironed out all of its troubles. Apparently, SP3 related problems are still there and this time the result is far more troublesome.

According to some Windows XP users who upgraded to SP3, they have suffered an endless reboot cycle upon installing the update. The problem seems to confine itself to AMD based PCs, but some Intel users have also complained about the same problem.

There are some experts who say that SP3 is not the problem per se. But let’s see how fast Microsoft can solve this bug. As for me, I’ll wait a couple more months before I attempt to upgrade my OS with the SP3 update.