Hasta La Gadget!

For years, Dell’s been teasing supermodel-thin laptops, each one flawed out of the gate: too pricey, too underpowered, and with underwhelming battery life. This time, Dell told us we’d get something different: a laptop without compromise. Recently, Round Rock killed off the Adamo and nixed the XPS 14, and then rumors started to spin — a spiritual successor would be the slimmest 15.6-inch notebook we’d ever seen, be crafted from “special materials” and yet cost less than $1,000. Dell even stated that it would have an “innovative new form factor” of some sort.

The company neglected to mention it would look like a MacBook Pro.

This is the Dell XPS 15z, and we’re sorry to say it’s not a thin-and-light — it’s actually a few hairs thicker than a 15-inch MacBook Pro, wider, and at 5.54 pounds, it weighs practically the same. It is, however, constructed of aluminum and magnesium alloy and carries some pretty peppy silicon inside, and the base model really does ring up at $999. That’s a pretty low price to garner comparisons to Apple’s flagship, and yet here we are. Has Dell set a new bar for the notebook PC market? Find out after the break.

Continue reading Dell XPS 15z review

Dell XPS 15z review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 21:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we say the speakers are built in, we aren’t kidding. The main drivers are embedded within cabinet doors, while the subwoofer unit is perfectly concealed behind the skirting boards at the base.

Microsoft has some Mango-flavored updates in store for its Windows Phone operating system, and we’re going to be there live to see whether they’re really ripe. Really juicy. Steve Ballmer has promised over 500 new features in this next major release of the OS and we can’t wait to hear him list them all out. One by one. In excruciating detail. Bookmark this page right here and come on back tomorrow at the times below to join in the fun.

04:00 – Hawaii
07:00 – Pacific
08:00 – Mountain
09:00 – Central
10:00 – Eastern
15:00 – London
16:00 – Paris
18:00 – Moscow
22:00 – Perth
22:00 – Shenzhen
23:00 – Tokyo
00:00 – Sydney (May 25th)

Microsoft’s Windows Phone VIP preview happens tomorrow, liveblog happens here! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 20:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers create 26 terabit-per-second connections with just a single laser originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on August 31, 2010 by CyberNet.

Windows only
After a little while it can be nice to freshen up the appearance of the things we use each day. I’m sure that many of us start off the morning with a Windows login prompt on the screen, and with a quick DLL replacement you can make that Windows 7 login screen look completely different than what ships with the stock OS.

I’m going to focus on getting the login screen you see in the screenshot above, which is modeled after the Longhorn project. It’s actually very close to the Longhorn login screen, which you can see in this screencast I had made.

Once you head on over to this DeviantArt page you’ll see three different sets of DLLs that you can grab. One doesn’t have the Windows flag, another one has it (this is the one in the screenshot above), and another one has an embedded version that is located inside the transparent glass. Grab which ever one you want, and make sure you get the correct version (32-bit or 64-bit) depending on what you have installed. You can even grab all three, and replace the DLL a few times to figure out which one you like the appearance of more.

The file you will be replacing is the authui.dll that is located in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. However, before you’ll be able to replace the DLL you’ll need to take ownership of the authui.dll file. To do so I highly recommend using the registry script here, which will add a “Take Ownership” option to the context menu. The download includes a second script that you can run to remove the option from the context menu after everything is done, or I’d say it is useful enough to keep around.

Now that you’ve taken ownership of the authui.dll file you can go ahead and replace it. You should then be able to logoff or lock your machine to immediately see the changes.

The DeviantArt page also references the background image they use in their screenshots as well as a free (no-install) application you can use to update the background image to anything you want. Personally I like the native Windows 7 background with this design, so I’ll be keeping it around for the time being.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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