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Issue 498- April 30, 2008

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2008
==== 1342 Subscribers in 44 Countries ====

Welcome to the 498th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news highlights and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments.

Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php

Contents

Opening Thoughts

There has been a bug going around and it seems like a lot of people I know have sore throats and runny noses. I haven't been feeling too bad, but with the kids and Lisa feeling sick, I'm bound to catch something.

Only 2 more weeks until I turn 500. I'm almost as old as Papa Smurf!

Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net

News Highlights

Lights. Camera. Cellphone Action.

Who says cellphones are good only for talking? Today they are bringing together two unlikely brand names: Nokia and Spike Lee.
Mr. Lee, the director, is teaming up with Nokia, the cellphone maker, to direct a short film comprising YouTube-style videos created by teenagers and adults using their mobile phones.

Read the New York Times article...
Leave a comment...

It's a small, small tech world

I don't have kids. But I'm still enough of one inside that I get a certain amount of glee from seeing what's out there for today's generation. That, and I tend to spoil my friends' kids silly, but so far it's been real young kid/toddler stuff. I'm ready to step it up.
When I was a little one, there was no baby laptop, no cutesy MP3 player, no big-button, child-friendly play cell phone. Is it me, or does it seem like some toys encourage kids to prep for adulthood way too soon?

Read the MSNBC article...
Leave a comment...

BlackBerry's Quest: Fend Off the iPhone

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he's encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.
That is where, 70 miles west of Toronto in Ontario, 19 nondescript, low-rise office buildings comprise the headquarters of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.
R.I.M. is the North American leader in building smartphones, those versatile handsets that operate more like computers than phones. But R.I.M. may have trouble dominating the market's next phase. Once the exclusive domain of e-mail-obsessed professionals, smartphones are now prized by consumers who want easy access to the Web, digital music and video even more than an omnipresent connection to their in-boxes.
Since the iPhone went on sale last summer, amid long lines of shoppers and media adulation, the contours of the smartphone market have begun to shift rapidly toward consumers.

Read the New York Times article...
Leave a comment...

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PCIN.net Site Update

Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:

Paragon Software Group Hard Disk Manager 2008
http://PCIN.net/help/software/paragonhdm2008.php

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/photoshopEL5_Premiere3.php

ExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.php

Paragon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.php

Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/

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Tips and Other Stuff

RightMark CPU Clock

In an article about extending battery life, Dennis O'Reilly mentions the RightMark CPU Clock utility he uses. Not only does it show information about your CPU, but it also lets you control several different power settings.

RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock) is a small GUI application designed for real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level on supported CPU models via processor's power management model-specific registers (MSRs). In automatic management mode it continuously monitors the CPU usage level and dynamically adjusts the CPU frequency, throttle and/or voltage level as needed, realizing the "Performance on Demand" concept.

I downloaded the RAR package, extracted it and ran the program (it appears that there is nothing to install). If you like to see the basic information about your CPU and other hardware, along with those power settings I mentioned, then check it out.

Leave a comment...

529 Computing Tips

PC Magazine has a huge collection of tips:

Crafted by our analysts and editors and tested in PC Labs, our vast list of tips starts with the fundamentals of computing and then moves on to multimedia, mobility, business, and online solutions for maximizing your digital life.

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Nine must-have freeware apps rise to the top

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I've linked to various Windows Secrets newsletter items in the past. It is an excellent newsletter and I highly recommend it. The issue I received today has a link to nine freeware apps that have been regularly centred out/chosen in "best of" lists.

The "best freeware" lists published by Web sites and magazines frequently trumpet dozens of programs, but the results reflect the subjective opinions of just one or two testers.

To find the best of the best, I compared roundups of "great" freeware conducted recently by four reputable publications to find the programs that were endorsed by at least three of the reviews.

Out of the lists he looked at, only 9 programs were on 3 of the lists, and only 1 was on all 4. It's a good read with links to each of the 9 programs.

Leave a comment...

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PCIN.net Affiliated Sites

Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check them out from time to time for updates:

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Disclaimer and Other Stuff

PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying the tips in this newsletter.

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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net

Copyright 1998-2008, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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