The Dotcom bust ten years ago caught the semiconductor industry with their pants on the ground (yeah like the American Idol looser)
When global demand for chip stopped, the chip industry scaled down on the manufacturing. Thus creating a spike in the prices now and also in the future. Market expectations are that the chip shortage will drive prices up through 2012. Good for the industry not so much for consumers. Expect to pay more for everything that has a chip in it. Computer memory, mobile phones, etc. Prices for gadget such as iphones and itouch will likely bottom out at a higher dollar compared to similar trends over the past 15-20 years.

I believe that windows 7 may represent the last biggest upgrade to the Windows environment. Looking at it from a client desktop perspective likely the biggest ever. Microsoft adoption and replacement cycle will take W7 to the next seven years at least. During this time I am sure Microsoft will start looking at new technologies; I see Microsoft going toward less PC-centric, but then again I think Microsoft will have no choice since vendor and manufacturer will also move toward the same goals.

Netbooks. I was actually one of the few that did not think much about them or the success associated with them. The formula is rather simple and clever. Take a ordinary notebook, strip it down. Reduce processing power, shrink its footprint, and reduce the price tag. Current netbooks from HP, Dell or Lenovo cram performance once only reserved for full size notebooks into 2-pounds package. Cost for these netbooks today vary from 250.00 to 500.00 US. These machines aren’t designed to serve as one primary PC, but they are ideal for low cost, low mass secondary systems. Perfect for travel, on the go, or in the house.

Keyboards- Some model may cram in full size keyboards but typically netbooks are 10-20 percent smaller from a keyboard perspective.

CPU- Most common configuration I know of is a 1.3 up to 1.6ghz Intel power Atom processor. Avoid anything less than a 1.ghz.

Memory- 1gb may be standard on most models, however, personally I would avoid anything less than a 2gb in size of memory. Also, if you have Windows 7, 2gb would be the magic number you would want to stick with.

USB- Try to stick with units that have at least 3 ports, USB or mini DV, the more the better!

Screen- 8-10 inches would be your typical netbook. Anything above 12 inches would not be considered a netbook.

Wireless connectivity- Wi-Fi Bluetooth and Wireless N should at least be the minimum you would want to look for. Options may be 3g etc with monthly service associated with it.

Card Readers- SD is typically included in most units

Battery- Most units should at least have a 10-12 hour battery, don’t get any extended battery since it may make the unit heavier and bulkier.

Storage- Most units now have a 250gb storage device either a normal spinning drive or a Solid state drive (at additional cost)
Getting a bigger is an option but careful since it may make the unit run slower. A solide state drive may help but the cost different today does not justify the switch for the normal user. Especially on these low cost netbooks.

Here are a few tools I have come across that are worth mentioning. Enjoy

DVDFab Decrypter

Much like DVD Shrink, DVDFab Decrypter cuts through copy protection and rips DVDs to your hard drive. Unlike DVD Shrink, DVDFab does not offer compression tools. DVDFab is shareware, but its trial version lets you do nearly as much as you’d ever need. That said, users who pony up for the platinum edition don’t seem to have any regrets.

DVD Decrypter

The freeware DVD Decrypter works much like DVD Shrink and DVDFab, ripping DVDs to your hard drive by tearing through pesky copy protection. Like DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter hasn’t been actively developed for a while, but it’s still doing the job for most folks without complaint.

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Now that we’ve seen some of the most popular, it’s time to narrow it down to choose your ultimate favorite:

Any DVD and DVD43

This week’s honorable mentions go out to AnyDVD (Windows, shareware) and DVD43 (freeware)

There are other out there like DVDX copy, I can think of few others as well. If your favorite didn’t make the list or you want to point out something, let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

Support any cancer organizations in your area. Here is a great story of survival!!

Photos courtesy of Lidia Boicu (Oh So Posh Photography)

This post is not about computers or IT related. If anyone ever had relatives or family with a cancer related issue would appreciate this story. Please donate to support this cause.

The Tiny Sparrow Foundation will soon be an established non-profit organization started by cancer survivor and passionate photographer Lidia Boicu. Lidia has endured a grueling battle with breast cancer and knows all too well how families are impacted any and all forms of cancer, especially those families whose children are the target of this unforgiving disease. During her journey, Lidia decided to use her love of photography as an outlet to relieve some of the frustration, anxiety, and pain she would be feeling at different times from chemotherapy and surgical procedures. If you take just a moment to view some of her work at Oh So Posh Photography, you will see that Lidia has been blessed with an incredible talent for capturing beautiful images, precious faces, and distinct personalities.

For Lidia, it wasn’t just enough to establish herself as a talented photographer. She wants to use her time selflessly to personally photograph children with cancer to capture a lifetime of memories for families who may not have a lifetime to spend together. Through her Tiny Sparrow Foundation, Lidia will be able to travel to families who have children with cancer to take pictures, then provide them with a photo album, Christmas cards, and irreplaceable images. She has already photographed precious Kate McRae and little baby Walker who are both suffering from childhood cancer.

Lidia’s fledgling Tiny Sparrow Foundation could use your support in the form of donations or just by spreading the news by word of mouth to your friends and families. Many great projects are in the works, but they all require funding. Lidia would like to network with other photographers so as to minimize traveling expenses. If you know of any photographers that would be interested in donating their time and services, please use this contact form. Lidia is simply asking anybody that is willing to help and that has it in their hearts to be part of creating some memories for families struck by the tragedy of cancer (or any other terminal illness) to donate whatever they can so she can get this started. If not, please take the time to spread the word and visit this site for updates and stories about the development of the Tiny Sparrow Foundation.

I had some issues with this, although some issues may be related to a patch that recently installed the hotfix is here. Run it from a dos command prompt.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974571 patch that installed end of October.

hotfix: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=168248

After this is done, if still nothing happens after reinstalling communicator then try these steps.

1. Log into the computer as an administrator.
2. Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Manage.
3. In the left column, expand Services and Applications and click on Services.
4. In the right pane, locate the following services:
COM+ Event System
COM+ System Application
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
5. Double-click on the service to bring up the properties and set each one of
the services to Automatic. Make sure they are all started.
6. While the properties are up, click on the Log On tab and make sure that each
of these services have the options, “Local System account” and “Allow
service to interact with Desktop” checked.
7. Click on OK and reboot the computer.
8. When the computer comes back up, click on Start > Run and type in “appwiz.cpl”.
Then click on OK.

This worked on about eight out of ten desktops. Good luck!

I recently learned from an issue that having the default created by MS which will allow for a user to create an entry with no end date could eventually lead to the entry itself being corrupt over time causing outlook entries to be out of synch by an hour. I suggest disabling this feature. For Outlook 2003 this will be similar. The registry entry will be Office10 vs Office12 as described below. Also, in the event you have some calendar entries that are off by an hour you can try running the MS TZ migration tool for Outlook. However, if the calendar entries are corrupt this tool will not help you. There is really no remedy to recover from a corrupt calendar event other than to delete and recreate it or move the event to the proper time manually.

1. Exit Outlook 2007.
2. Start Registry Editor.
* In Windows Vista, click Start
Collapse this imageExpand this image
the Start button
, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

Collapse this imageExpand this image
User Account Control permission
If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or provide confirmation.
* In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then click to select the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences
If you use policies, select the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences
Note Both these registry keys perform the same function.
4. After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type DisableRecurNoEnd, and then press ENTER.
6. Right-click DisableRecurNoEnd, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

Resources: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955449

Check this out!! Good deal cant miss on this.

IOBit Security 360 Pro

WinX DVD Author

Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-10378872-58.html

During the past week, I’ve been experimenting with Windows 7 on a newly built desktop system. The installation and initial configuration process alone is quite a contrast compared to my experiences with XP and Vista. Way better than XP or Vista.

If you haven’t installed Windows since the days of XP, you’ll find that things are much easier now. With XP it’s a real pain if the drivers aren’t on the Windows CD. In many cases you had to create a floppy disk that has the drivers, or create a special Windows install CD that contains the drivers you need. Windows 7 (and Vista) accept a separate CD with drivers, so there’s no need for a floppy drive or a lot of advance preparation.

This system is far from plain-vanilla hardware. It has an Intel flash drive as its primary “hard disk” and a hardware RAID-1 (mirrored) drive array as its second disk. The motherboard’s built-in BIOS takes care of the RAID configuration, which often means that Windows needs special drivers before setup can even see the drives. Not so this time. Windows 7 saw the drives and had no problem using them. I’ll admit to a bit of “cheating” when it comes to compatible hardware. Rather than choosing bleeding-edge components, I bought ones that had been shipping for at least six months. I also went for big names like Intel for the system chipset and NVidia for the graphics. That improves the chances there will be some in-box driver for the hardware.

Post-setup configuration was pretty straightforward. There are certain things that I always do after setup, such as telling Explorer not to hide file extensions or system files, setting up desktop icons etc, I am not sure why MS does not by default show all desktop icons since home users are completely cluless at time on how to find them or modify them. I also reduce the amount of space taken up by System Restore; backups are good, but I don’t want them taking up fifteen to twenty percent of a drive. I also turn off the Aero Glass transparency; burriness behind title bars and borders drives me crazy. The majority of settings haven’t moved since Vista, but if you’re coming over from XP it will take a while to find where they’ve hidden everything.

One little glitch happened after I got things set up. As a final step I went over to Windows Update and selected two optional driver updates. One of them was for the motherboard’s built-in network port. After installing the driver, the network setup stopped working completely. After a driver rollback and reboot I got things working properly again. An average user might not know how to do that. it would be helpful if the Windows Update status not only showed you what had been installed, but let you back it out directly from that dialog as well. I also noticed that IE8 is far more stable on W7 than on Vista or XP; No surprise there. Overall, it seems that Microsoft has done a pretty good job. I think its ready for prime time.