Keku.com's shared items
As predicted, HP today announced that they will immediately begin taking orders for the TouchSmart TX2, the first multi touch laptop widely available to consumers. The laptop, priced starting at $1,199, will begin shipping at the end of November.
The TX2’s multi touch interface will work with any program that already supports multi touch, as well as with HP’s integrated MediaSmart media suite. The laptop features an array of gestural controls, including all of the multi touch standards, like pinch-zooming and two finger rotation, as well as the ability to open MediaSmart at any time by drawing an “m” on the screen with both fingers. The screen uses capacitance-based touch detection and is designed to accept input either from the pad of a finger or from a built-in digital pen.
With a 12.1 inch screen and weighing in at 4.3 pounds, the TX2 is physically nearly identical to its predecessor, the TX2000. The only thing differentiating the two visually is the TX2’s glossy, charcoal-colored finish and “Reaction Imprint” design.
All but the cheapest loadouts of the TX2 come equipped with Turion X2 dual-core processors. All models will ship with Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, and consumers can opt for up to 8GB of DDR2 SDRAM and 500GB of hard disk storage. The laptop also features a webcam and optional fingerprint reader.
What do you think of the TX2? Are multi touch laptops going to become the norm? Let us know after the jump.
|
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Expect Yahoo’s share price to jump tomorrow - Jerry Yang will be stepping down as CEO of the company, a job that he took on an interim basis in June 2007.
Yang will return to his former role as Chief Yahoo, and will remain on the board of directors. The company has hired executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles to find the new CEO.
This was an unavoidable event, and in our opinion Yang took too long to step down. In May it was clear that Yang’s heart was no longer in it, and he reconfirmed that last month at the Web 2.0 Summit. Under his watch the company has lost tens of billions of dollars in market cap and thousands of former Yahoo employees (and hundreds of execs) are now gone.
How much of the downfall was his fault? It’s impossible to say, except that he takes full responsibility for mishandling the Microsoft acquisition offer last February. One thing you have to love is Yang’s tenacity in keeping Yahoo an independent company at any cost. But what shareholders and employees need is a leader with an actual plan.
Who will be the next CEO? We speculated back in June that Jeff Mallet or Dan Rosensweig were possible candidates. Mallet wouldn’t consider the job, we’ve heard. But Rosensweig would probably take it if offered.
Whoever ends up with the job, let’s just hope it’s an outsider. Yahoo is being clear that they are considering internal candidates. President Sue Decker is likely being considered. But ex-execs we’ve spoken with say she was a big part of the problem at Yahoo, and if she takes over as CEO it will likely be more of the same.
The press release:
Yahoo! Conducting Search for New CEO
Co-Founder Jerry Yang to Step Down Following Appointment of New CEO
and Return to Former Role as Chief Yahoo! and Board Member
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a search for a new Chief Executive Officer. Jerry Yang, co-Founder of Yahoo!, has decided to return to his former role as Chief Yahoo! upon the appointment of his successor as CEO, and he will also continue to serve on the Board. Yang, 40, assumed the CEO role at the Board’s request in June 2007, and he has led Yahoo! through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform.
Chairman Roy Bostock, working with the independent directors and in consultation with Jerry Yang, is leading the process of assessing potential candidates and determining finalists for consideration. The search will encompass both internal and external candidates, and the Board has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading international executive search firm, to assist in the process.
“Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues,” said Roy Bostock. “Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board.”
“From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise,” said Jerry Yang. “When the Board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the Company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo! realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation.”
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
You just hit the power button your PC, and now you've got enough time to brew a fresh pot of coffee for the entire office—because that's how long it takes for your computer to go from "on" to "ready to work." If your PC's bogged down by a bunch of programs that automatically start up when it does, it can take forever to get started every morning. Without a major hardware upgrade, there's not much you can do to cut the time it takes for Windows to actually boot—but you can trim and tweak the amount of time it takes for your desktop to get to a working state. Let's take a look at a few ways you can cut your Windows' desktop's loading times using built-in utilities and third-party tools.
When you install a new piece of software on your computer these days, more often than not it will set a little bit of itself to start up automatically when your PC does, either to check for updates, make it seem faster, or just remind you that it's there at all with a little icon in your system tray. Problem is, when you install lots of software but don't use it all, these little startup entries can suck away CPU cycles, memory, and time. Reclaim them by removing the ones you don't need.
Remove Startup Items Without Downloading a Thing
While many programs promise to clean up your startup for you, you can make quite a few adjustments in Windows itself, without using any kind of extra tools.
The best, safest, and most basic place to start is in your Windows Start menu's Startup program group. Navigate to it and see what programs appear there. Right-click on any one and choose Delete if you don't need it starting up on its own.
Once you've done that, it's time to bring out the big guns. Windows can also start up items planted in your registry automatically. To see what those are, from the Windows Start menu, choose Run..., and type msconfig then hit Enter to start the Windows System Configuration Utility. Switch to the Startup tab to see a more comprehensive list of what's starting up automatically. Here's what it looks like.
Now, this list can seem opaque and confusing. What is ctfmon or RTHDCPL? The command column, which sometimes lists a full path to the item's location, can sometimes give you a clue as to what the heck an item actually is. As always, Google is also your friend in these situations. From here you can uncheck items to stop them from starting up. Don't uncheck stuff just because you don't know what it is; uncheck stuff you know you don't need. For instance, if you're not a big iTunes or Quicktime user but you've got the installed for occasional use, uncheck QTTask and iTunesHelper.Once you've unchecked items in this utility, when you restart your computer, Windows will prompt you, saying that it's using "selective startup." That's ok—you can always renable items by typing the msconfig command in the Run box again.
Messing with msconfig takes somewhat of a brave and savvy Windows user, but a few third-party Windows tweaking and cleaning tools offer startup managers that are more user-friendly.
Download and Run a Startup Cleaner Utility
There are literally a gazillion Windows tweaking utilities that include startup management capabilities, but lets take a look at two good ones.
CCleaner (which stands for "Crap Cleaner", see our original review) can scan your system for all sorts of extras and get rid of them, but you're interested in the Startup manager. Hit the Tools button, then the Startup button to get there. Here's what your list will look like. As you can see, it offers a little more information than msconfig above (in the Program and File column), and that may help you decipher what's program is what. You can disable and delete items from your Startup using those respective buttons.
If you don't want to install more software in order to clean up your system (which makes sense), System Explorer (see our original review) offers a portable version, and its startup manager is beefy, with hooks into the registry, an online virus checker, and even Google searches for file names. In the System tab, hit the Startup tab to take a look at what's auto-starting on your PC. Here's what it looks like.
As you can see, using the right-click context menu you can go straight to the registry editor, or do a search on ProcessLibrary.com or Google for the item. Also, the program's publisher and file path are included, which offer more information about what's what and what you can afford to disable.
Besides CCleaner and SystemExplorer, Lifehacker readers also like MZ Ultimate Tweaker and RegToy.
Delay Item Start to Get to Work Faster
Of course, it's not that one program that's starting up automatically and slowing down your whole PC—it's all of them in aggregate. You may audit your startup list and realize that yes, you do want all these programs to start. But maybe you don't need them to start up at the exact moment you're dying to get into Outlook and read your email, or work on that urgent report. The Startup Delayer utility (our review) does just that—it delays items from starting up from anywhere from 20 seconds to several minutes to hours so you can start working sooner. For instance, if your printer driver pre-loads but you're not printing the moment you log on, you can delay it for a minute or two. Similarly, I really don't need the Java Updater process starting its work before I do, so it is a good candidate for delaying. Here's what Startup Delayer looks like.
Don't Fall for the Myths
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions and misguided "secrets" to speeding up your PC published out there. Don't fall for them. If you delve deep enough into Windows optimization tips online you'll find tips about deleting page files, cleaning out your registry, setting your PC to use multiple cores manually, and lots of other authoritative-sounding tweaks. Before you do any of that, check out the How-To Geek's awesome guide to debunking Windows performance-tweaking myths.
Have you had any startup editing revelations? What's your favorite PC startup speed-up utility? Post it in the comments.
Going near the Internet when you’re drunk is a bad, bad idea. Many people have discovered this the hard way. It’s particularly bad if you work online.
Google acknowledged this potential threat of the modern age when they provided a Gmail feature to keep you out of your inbox after you’ve hit the bottle. Once enabled, the feature will ask you to solve some mathematical problems before allowing you to send anything to anyone.
Most people, unfortunately, can still remember where the Calculator application is on their computer, even with a good half bottle of whiskey stuffed in their innards, so this hasn’t proven too effective for most. And still, there’s plenty of damage to be done in places where Gmail’s watchful eyes can’t protect you: Twitter, Facebook, your own blog. Even MySpace, though the chances of anyone noticing drunken behavior as anything but the norm over there aren’t high.
Here are a few methods for keeping your drunken alter-ego away from the computer. Hopefully, you’ll have a tougher time getting around these than you did getting around Gmail’s math quiz.
1. Hide the Power Cable
We all know Mac users like to gloat about how they never have to shut their computers down. But they’re also the most likely to get drunk and go surfing the net in such a sad state. I’m a Mac user myself, I should know.
Shut the computer down, take your power cable, and hide it somewhere. Preferably, your hiding place will require the assistance of a chair to reach, like the top of a cupboard or up in the roof through the manhole. That way, once you’ve had your fill, you won’t be able to get up there. Sure, you’ll try. But you’ll fall off the chair a few times, get a concussion and break some expensive items on your way down.
You certainly won’t be getting anywhere near that cable.
2. Install Linux
Here’s a surefire way to make sure you never make it to the desktop. Install Linux on your computer, and make sure it’s one of those versions that spews out heaps of unreadable machine-speak as it boots up. You know the sort, white text on a black background, a modern day reminder of your DOS years.
I’ll guarantee it, if you’ve had enough to drink, you won’t make it to the login screen. All that fast scrolling text will have you dizzy and nauseous. With any luck, you’ll perform a power chuck all over the screen, making it impossible to write an email or tweet something terrible.
And come on. Don’t tell me you can just clean up the chuck when you’re that drunk.
3. Follow Security Best Practices
You know those security best practices instructions from the IT department that you ignored? Follow them. Don’t let your machine save passwords. Come up with meticulously crafted passwords with impossible-to-memorize strings of numbers and letters. Then, don’t store your passwords anywhere.
Sure, you won’t remember those excruciatingly long strings even when you’re sober, not without writing them down. But isn’t it all worth it? Now you can’t get yourself fired or destroy your relationship by posting the wrong photo to Facebook.
4. Play Waterfall Tracks
Go to the nearest new age shop and grab a CD of waterfall and wildlife sounds. Rip the CD and put the tracks on loop. You know how waterfall sounds work—every time you go anywhere near the computer, you’ll have to rush to the bathroom. You won’t be able to hang around long enough to stop the track or turn off the speakers—ah, the simple power of beer.
5. Go to the Pub
Seriously, does nobody go out to drink anymore? Also, have you ever noticed that the last item in a list is always the most obvious idea? It’s expensive to drink out, I know, but it certainly doesn’t cost as much as losing your job. The other benefit is that your spouse won’t be on your back all night about picking up the beer caps you keep throwing across the room.
There’s still a danger: the smartphone. The smartphone that allows you to take an embarrassing photo and send it to all your friends by email, or publicly tweet it. Leave the smartphone at home.
Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, iwan_drago
---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
The OtherInbox Wants to be Your Mailman (Invites)
Unluckiest Guy on Earth Gets 44,000 Spam Emails Every Day
Gmail Wish List: 10 Things I’d Like to See in the New Gmail
Wanna Send Emails Into The Future? Now You Can.
AOL’s XDrive Lets You Send Big Emails
Severe Gmail Malware Fixed
BigString Sends Self-Destructing Emails
|
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Record Labels to Sue Vuze, Limewire and SourceForge — French record labels have received the green light to sue four US-based companies that develop P2P applications, including the BitTorrent client Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. Shareaza is the fourth application, for which the labels …
