Fake Wooden Mac Netbook Causes Blog Cat-Fight

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Snap! MacRumors got burned by this “9.5” Mac Netbook” when it didn’t bother reading the small print, and then came back with a rather bitchy retort.

First, the truth. This is not a Mac Netbook. It’s not even a real computer. It is in fact a handmade, carved wood MacBook, complete with pencil details drawn onto the screen and shell, lovingly crafted by Kyle Buckner. It is quite fantastic, and clearly real-looking enough to fool the Mac Rumors folks, despite the rather tongue in cheek teaser posted by the Cult of Mac. Under the headline “Is THIS the New Apple Netbook???”, Lonnie Lazar wrote the following:

Cult of Mac received this image tonight from a trusted contributor – and we just had to share.

We have more images that will take time to process and details about the provenance of this device we must parse, so bear with us until all can be revealed.

Mac Rumors then picked it up and responded thusly:

The explanation may be as innocent as a Chinese knock-off, but it seemed interesting enough to discuss (and pick apart). Hopefully, we’ll hear more details of the photo soon.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a miniaturized “netbook”. Rumors have pegged it at 10” (diagonally) and with the possibility of a touch screen.

Then, when Cult of Mac posted the full gallery and explanation after having a little fun, Mac Rumors got all bent out of shape:

Update: Turns out it’s a Pencil drawn, wooden model, and Cult of Mac’s sources are perhaps not to be trusted.

Mee-oow! Despite the cat fight, we’re sure everyone has made up now. As for the model itself? Gorgeous. In fact, I’d love a custom OS X pencil-drawn theme to run on my Wind Hackintosh.

Possible Photo of 9.5” Mac Netbook? [Mac Rumors]

Is THIS the New Apple Netbook??? [Cult of Mac]

MacBook Art Project is a Labor of Love [Cult of Mac]


Video: Acer Demoes Genre-Busting 11.6-Inch Netbook

How do you fit a full-sized keyboard into a netbook? Acer is achieving this seemingly impossible feat by simply making it bigger. But not that much bigger: The new Aspire One 751 has an 11.6-inch screen, only slightly bigger than the standard 10-inches but also not far off the magic 12” of Apple’s beloved 12” PowerBook of old.

And it’s not a bad idea. The Register, Britain’s cheeky-chappy of tech, has a video showing the sleek new machine and the larger size doesn’t seem to kill the portability. In fact, those extra inches bring a few other advantages along with the (obviously) bigger screen and keyboard.

The battery is larger, too. Acer claims five hours for the standard and nine hours for the optional six-cell. Even with the power-optimization of the latest netbooks, that’s pretty good. Remember that the gen. 1 Wind has less than two hours on a three-cell.

Another bonus is that, with the extra area, the internals can be spread thinner and the 751 has a very slim body because of it. From then on, things remain resolutely standard, with the usual three USB ports split over the two sides, a card reader, Atom processor, 160GB hard drive and a gig of RAM.

It’s an interesting move. Spiritually, this is clearly a netbook but physically it pushes the boundaries of the category while still keeping a good price. The notbook will be on sale this month in five candy colors for £380 ($570, but expect it to be less in the US).

Acer 11.6in notebook-not-netbook demo’d on camera [El Reg]


Tote-Table: Junk Notebook Stand Protects Your Junk

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Can you actually use a laptop on your lap? If the amount of alternatives is anything to go by, the answer is a deafening “no”. The latest in the line of junk designed to protect the family jewels is the Tote Table, which has the added honor of actually appearing in the Sky Mall catalog.

The tote table is a fold-up table with four telescopic legs and an extra flip-out surface for a mouse (or cup of coffee for the adventurous). These skinny legs extend up to 30 inches and completely obviate the non-slip surface of the table itself by providing a wobbly, shaky platform for your notebook computer.

Worse, there is a document holder, essentially a strip of wire with a clip on the end on which to hang papers for copy typing. Yes, copy typing at the airport. C’mon. This would obviously be better used holding a bag of potato chips in a ready-to-eat position.

For fun, lets take a look at the actual Sky Mall rendition of the product shot. It’s a clear candidate for Photoshop Disasters:

sky mauled

Fantastic! And only $60.

Product page [Sky Mall via Book of Joe]


PeeWee Portable is Tough Enough for Kids

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With a name like PeeWee, you might not expect to find this rebadged Intel Classmate PC very kid friendly (I’m talking Paul Ruebens PeeWee, not the kids’ sport kind). And you’d be wrong. Despite the price, which at $600 is around $100 more than the Intel, this tough little mother is perfect for the little ‘uns.

First, specs. It’s a netbook, which means a 1.6GHz Atom processor, which is coupled with a memory card reader, 60GB HD (which is, very weirdly, PATA not SATA — beware if buying upgrades) and 1GB RAM.

The differences are a water-resistant keyboard and generally toughened exterior and a rotating, flip-around screen which turns this into a tablet. And right there is the reason this works for kids — they can scrawl and draw just like they would with paper and, instead of having to put their crap up on the fridge you can simply start their lifelong lessons in computer use by claiming a “hard drive crash” or “corrupted file”.

The PeeWee also comes loaded with kid-friendly software. Unlike the usual meaning of kid-friendly, which really signifies low quality, feature-stripped junk an adult wouldn’t touch, the PeeWee actually has proper software, from Microsoft Works (although OpenOffice would be better), ArtRage 2, FBReader for e-books and, amazingly, Evernote for note-taking.

The only thing missing is Etch-a-Sketch.

$600 might be steep, but if it’s tough enough to last, it’s probably going to end up cheaper than two or three regular netbooks. Available now.

Product page [PeeWee. Thnks, Matt!]


Short Movie Brings Paper Computer to Life

This is Noteboek, a short film by Dutch artist Evelien Lohbeck. It is also the product promo for the best multipurpose gadget that ever lived, a little notebook whose pages bring drawings to life. Geeky life.

Many of our childhoods were filled with such things. I’m old enough to remember drawing pretend computers into my school notebooks, which, when not ignoring geography lessons to work on my comic book “Extreme Team”, was my main school pass-time.

Lohbeck actually has a computer, though, so he was able to make his fantasies real. This meta rabbit-hole, using a computer to make a notebook into a non-computer, continues in the short film. YouTube becomes the portal through which real-life enters, only to be corrupted again by paper machines, including an amazing pop-up toaster.

Check Lohbeck’s site for more — Noteboek actually contains some other shorts made separately. In all, a fantastic little movie. And is it just me, or do you all want one of these magic books?

Movie page [Evelien Lohbeck via the Giz]

Dell Adamo Teardown Shows Feature-Packed Innards

Adamo_teardown_overview

Dell’s newly released Adamo laptop has been compared to the ultralight Apple MacBook Air and HP’s Voodoo Envy notebook. But is the Adamo’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside?

iFixit.com and TechRepublic have done a teardown of the Adamo beast. Adamo is nearly not as light as the MacBook Air, they say, but it offers more in terms of technology features.

Dell has also created a clever locking system that snaps the bottom plate of
the computer into place. That means no screws at the bottom giving the Adamo a cleaner look than the MacBook Air.

Adamo’s basic model comes with a 13.4-inch screen, a 1.2-GHz Intel
Core 2 Duo processor, 2-GB memory and 128-GB solid state drive. It also
offers two USB ports, one USB/eSATA port and a display port. And it carries a not-recession friendly price tag.  The basic version of the Adamo will cost $2,000, while
a more expensive model costs $2,700.

Other highlights from the teardown: 

Dell_adamo_vs_macbook

  • Adamo’s 11.1 V battery is rated at 40 Watt hours, better than
    MacBook Air’s 7.2 V, 37 Watt hour battery. Overall operating time for
    the Adamo is 5 hours, beating the MacBook Air by 30 minutes.
  • At 489 grams, the battery represents 27% of Adamo’s weight. Compare
    that to the Macbook Air’s battery that weighs in at 287 grams or just
    21% of the Air’s total weight.

Photos: iFixit and TechRepublic

PC Manufacturers Embrace 64-Bit Vista

This article was written on May 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

64-bit computer.pngWe knew it would come sooner or later, and from the looks of it widespread 64-bit computing might be on the horizon. Just yesterday we posted the results of our poll asking whether you’re running a 64-bit operating system, and only about a quarter of you are. That could be changing as more PC manufacturers start to push 64-bit machines.

TG Daily noticed that Gateway had started to ship consumer PC’s that are running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. They dubbed Gateway the “first large PC vendor” to make this move, but after looking around I noticed that others are doing the same thing. HP is offering a 64-bit Vista option on many of their laptops and desktops, and some are as low as $449… nearly half the price of Gateway’s cheapest 64-bit computer. A little more digging revealed that some ASUS notebooks are also shipping with a 64-bit version of Vista.

Now we’re just sitting back waiting for other manufacturers to start adopting the technology. It’s definitely nice to see the transition to 64-bit starting to take place, and hopefully by large vendors like HP jumping on board some of the compatibility issues will be eliminated for those adopting 64-bit.

The next time you go shopping for a PC don’t be surprised if you’re walking away with a 64-bit operating system!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Report: Apple Loses Lead in Computer Reliability

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Apple’s computers are slipping in reliability compared to 2008, a report suggests.

Computer support hotline RescueCom on Tuesday issued its computer reliability report, announcing that Asus and Lenovo tied for the No. 1 spot while Apple dropped to No. 2.

To measure computer reliability, RescueCom looks at the number of consumer service calls made to its hotline (1-800-RESCUE-PC) regarding a tech manufacturer’s products while taking into account the company’s market share. The fewer the calls made about each vendor, the better — and this quarter Asus and Lenovo nabbed the top spot.

It’s worth noting, however, that this is just RescueCom’s quarterly report; the service also conducts a yearly report. Apple secured the top spot overall for 2008. We’ll just have to wait and see if Apple regains the lead over the rest of the year.

RESCUECOM Releases First of Quarterly Computer Reliability Reports [PR Newswire via Gizmodo]

Photo: Jase n tonic/Flickr

Dell’s Rugged Notebook Drops From the Ugly Tree

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Like a battered boxer, the new Dell E6400 XFR is both tough and ugly, and can take a beating. The rugged laptop also manages to squeeze in pretty much everything you’d need, and some things you don’t.

First, just how tough is it? The sealed keyboard and magnesium chassis (this last also found on old iBooks, which were also pretty tough little machines) mean you can drop it from four feet, splash it with water or coffee and use it in a desert dust storm. The 14.1”” screen is designed to be viewable outside and, again like an old iBook (the toilet-seat model, this time) the Dell has a carrying handle.

You won’t be surprised by many of the connections: 4 x USB, a PCI slot and a memory card reader – but leaving out Bluetooth in favor of a modem seems rather odd. We guess that Dell sees this being used in some out of the way places without (shiver) proper internet. All these ports are concealed behind protective flaps when not in use.

Inside you’ll find a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a DVD drive and a 120GB hard drive. For true resilience, though, there is an optional 128GB SSD. Finally, if you opt to put in a “mobile broadband” card, you’ll get GPS as a bonus.

Actually, the more I look at the product pictures, the more I like it. It looks like the kind of computer you’d find in Halo. The price for this tuff-e-nuff notebook? From $3200.

Product page [Dell via El Reg]

Faulty Chips Still Plague HP Notebook Users

Hp0304

Problems with faulty Nvidia graphics chips that caused large numbers of notebook computers to fail last year may not be over yet — at least for some.

Some HP users are complaining that their laptops, which were not included in the company’s official list of affected machines, are facing problems similar to what other users experienced last year.

"When I boot up my laptop, it says there’s no driver and I can’t install one. That means my machine locks up and shuts down," says Dana Hight, a HP notebook user who runs a web development company. "It is clearly related to what happened with Nvidia chips last year." Hight has bought his laptop about a year and half ago.

But he, along with other users in one of HP’s online support forums, say the company won’t recognize his laptop model as one of the versions affected by the faulty Nvidia chips. Hight has the DV9549US model. HP did not respond to a request for comment about the complaints.

Last year many consumers saw notebooks and desktops PCs that refused to boot up, did not detect wireless networks or offer any video on the monitor. HP acknowledged problems with about 38 desktops and 14 notebook models. In October, 2008, HP issued BIOS fixes and a limited extended warranty for these machines.  Nvidia has said a problem with the packaging material for some of its chipsets led to the high failure rates. Dell and Apple also reported problems with Nvidia chips in 2008.

But Hight and other users in HP’s forums complain that their notebook models from the dv95xx series are facing similar issues.

"About two months ago I started noticing flickering and the system locking up, shutting down and rebooting," says Hight. "It started getting worse but HP told me their technicians are not aware of anything with my chipset."

Hight, who had bought extended warranty with the now bankrupt Circuit City says he has two options: to pay up to $400 to get a new motherboard, but with the same chipset from Nvidia; or buy a new machine that will cost hundreds of dollars.

A quick look through a thread on one of HP’s online support forums reveals similar complaints. HP technicians, say the users online, will not acknowledge their problems as being related to the bad Nvidia chips.

HP has not responded to Wired.com’s request for comment.

Hight says HP should step up and replace the faulty laptops instead of offering piecemeal fixes. "I would expect HP to give us a solution," says Hight. "Why should users who paid $800 to get a HP laptop have to pay now because they got a bad machine?"

Photo: (DeclanTM/Flickr)