Have Laptop Will Travel

OCZ Technology to release DIY Notebook PC

Originally posted on May 15, 2008 @ 11:13 pm

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.

US Customs officials can search laptops without a warrant

Originally posted on April 26, 2008 @ 12:15 am

Laptop users who frequently travel to the US may have to contend with far stricter measures regarding the data in your laptops.

A US Appeals Court ruling this week declared that customs officials working at the Los Angeles International Airport did not violate a man’s rights when they decided to tamper his computer in searching for alleged child pornography files.

The exact statement of Judge Diarmuid o’Scannlain was “We are satisfied that reasonable suspicion is not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border.”

The case began in 2005 when Michael Arnold, returned from a his trip to the Philippines. He was found to have been carrying a laptop, a separate hard drive, memory cards as well as six compact discs. Officials requested Arnold to open his laptop and turn it on and two icons identified as photos were seen on the desktop. When officials clicked on the folders they saw images of naked women. He was detained and questioned for several hours. A thorough search of his computer was made and allegedly what looks like child porn was discovered.

AMD CTO resigns

Originally posted on April 14, 2008 @ 5:23 pm

AMD’s woes are just not letting up. It was announced recently that the company’s Chief Technology Officer Phil Hester has resigned.

According to various reports, Hester issued his resignation effective immediately. Friday was his last day at work. Hester is just the third person to resign from AMD over the last year, this included Henri Richard, who was the head of Sales as well as Dave Orton, who haded the ATI Graphics division.

Hester’s responsibility will be divided among the various department heads, and at this moment there are no plans to fill the position he left.

Just last week AMD announced that it was going to let go of ten per cent of its workforce and also said that it is looking towards lower revenues that previously speculated.

Democrat Congressman to file new net neutrality bill

Originally posted on December 4, 2007 @ 12:01 am

With the US presidential elections looming, politicians are doing their best to be heard and noticed among the din of other politicos beating their own pots and pans. what better way to be heard than to ride on a very hotly contested issue.

Rep. Ed Markey is planning to present a network neutrality bill in the next two weeks. The Massachusetts Democrat’s new bill is reportedly going to be very similar to an earlier network neutrality legislation that he unsuccessfully lobbied for in 2006.

Based on the 2006 bill, the proposal was to prevent broadband carriers like AT&T and Comcast from charging internet content, application and service providers with additional fees that are based on bandwidth consumption. This practice, according to network regulation supporters, is almost like price discrimination.

Will this new bill gain more headway than the previous bill? We’ll see in the coming months.

CompUSA closing its doors, to begin sales soon

Originally posted on December 8, 2007 @ 12:55 am

In what could be considered as signaling the end of an era, CompUSA has reportedly been sold to an arm of Gordon Bros., a restructuring firm. This means only one thing folks, CompUSA will be closing its retail stores.

At this early juncture CompUSA has not yet issued a definite timetable on when its stores will close. The only information given was that all 103 stores will remain open for the holiday season and will all be fully staffed. There are reports that some stores will be sold to other retailers.

Gordon Bros., on the other hand, announced that consumers should expect bargains on computer and electronic products as it beings its store closing sales.

CompUSA.com as well as CompTechPro will still be run by the company while sales are ongoing.

It is sad news that CompUSA is finally closing its doors. But as a consumer I am also quite excited about the possible bargains that I may be able to get when the closing sale does start.