HP Announces Desktop with SSD

Hewlett Packard (HP) India has announced the Compaq dc7800, claimed to be the industry's first desktop PC incorporating a Solid State hard drive (SSD), coming in an ultra-slim form factor.

Meant for business users, the dc7800 boasts a slew of environmentally-friendly features to comply with stringent environmental requirements of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold registry.

The included SSD allows for superior performance and durability in the form of near-instant access to data and elimination of moving parts that typically cause a lot of wear and tear. There are other advantages too, including faster boot times, improved power efficiency, shock improvement, and a smaller overall footprint. According to HP, dc7800 is the smallest business-ready desktop being around 46 percent smaller than its predecessors, at the same time providing 85 percent power efficiency.

During the launch, Arun Rao, country manager (business desktop PCs - personal systems group) of HP India, reiterated HP's commitment towards developing products that not only help business customers in being more productive but also reduce operating costs and the impact on the environment.

The Compaq dc7800 will be out on the market beginning May 1 and will cost Rs 40,000.

MTNL Offering Mobile Tracking Software

In order to help customers track their lost mobile phones, Mahanagar Telepone Nigam Limited (MTNL) is now offering Lost Mobile Tracking System (LMTS) in association with Micro Technologies, creators of the software.

A free software, LMTS is available for download from MTNL through GPRS, and can be installed on almost 250 models of mobile phones, the companies claim. The software that supports GSM technology, stores the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the handset, as well as the SIM (subscriber identity module) card number being used by the customer. It then asks for an alternative phone number or email address where the alert can be sent in case of theft or loss.

In the event of theft, the software sends an SMS alert regarding the new mobile number that has been replaced by the original number, and the IMEI number along with the current location of the handset. Those interested in the service, MTNL is providing it on a monthly subscription basis of Rs 30 per month.

Tweak UI

A small bug: after prolonged use, I've noticed a bug wherein if you Show Desktop (Windows+D), the MMM menus, when right-clicked on the desktop, disappear. But restoring any window fixes this.

Limitations
It's not a limitation per se, but MMM adds a coloured bar on the side, displaying proudly its own name as well as advertising for the MMM+ (which costs Rs 1,200 for lifetime support). Check here for the latest version.

Second, MMM cannot edit the "New" folder list in the context menu. For this, you'll need another application such as Tweak UI.

Tweak UI

It's been there right since Windows 95

Tweak UI is one of Microsoft's PowerToys; it's a great app for customization of XP. The app can do a lot of little tweaks (we won't go into those) for keeping your context menu clutter free. Just remember that under Templates is where you can remove or add document templates of choice. Give it a spin -- you'll love it!

Motorola Unveils the Motorokr U9

Motorola today launched the Motorokr U9 in the country; doing the honors was international rocker and brand ambassador Wyclef Jean who presented the first U9 to 'Miss India World 2008' Parvathy Omanakuttan. The Rokr U9 is claimed to deliver cutting-edge mobile music capabilities.

Curvaceous, small and light, the U9 has a metallic gloss finish with animated screen savers floating across the border-less external display. It allows one-touch access to your music library, pausing music as and when calls come through. Other music features include Microsoft Windows Media Player 11; and integrated music player with support for multiple audio files including Windows WMAv10 plus Janus DRM, MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC+ enhanced.

The phone also features: up to 25MB of on-board user memory (optional microSD memory card for storage up to 4GB of music, pictures, and other media); CrystalTalk technology for better call clarity; Stereo Bluetooth wireless technology; advanced speaker-independent voice recognition dialing; 2.0 mega pixels camera with 8x zoom, multi-shot, video capture and playback; messaging via MMS, SMS, and Push email; USB 2.0 for speedy transfer and data acess; Motorola Setup, Backup, and Text for easy setup of device for Internet browsing; phonebook and text message backup over the air; and Music ID1, a song identification service enabling users identify artists and album information of songs being played in immediate surroundings.

Motorola also claims to have created an ecosystem of additional products and services, information about which is accessible at: http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motoU9.

The Rokr U9 is expected to be available pan-India by end May. There will be two variants; the Deluxe Pack (1GB microSD card) and the Premium Pack (2GB microSD card plus stereo Bluetooth Rokr S9). The phone will be priced in the region of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 depending on the version.

A clutter-free context menu

Choice is always nice to have, but too much will certainly lead to clutter. It's a perpetual problem for those who install many programs, or prefer different programs to an all-in-one. Speaking for myself, in spite of WinZip being very capable of compression, I prefer the quick usability of WinRAR, and the fact that it can handle several compression types. Say hello to MMM from Hace Software.

The smarter, quicker, cleaner context menu -- thanks to MMM

What MMM does is, it allows you to trim down the Windows context menu, that is, the options you get when you right-click on a file or folder. How it does can be confusing at first: you need to right-click a file and then launch MMM -- after which it will let you edit the displayed right-click options.

It's as easy as drag-and-drop

This freeware XP-only app lets you easily remove what you do not want displayed in the context menu by dragging and dropping items from the left to the right-hand side of the window under a nifty "Hidden" feature. If you' like to view the items, but not in the main menu and rather in a sub-menu, the "Rarely used" feature is ideal for that.

Google Updates Earth to 4.3

Google Earth has been updated with what Google claims is a smoother and more natural 3D navigation system.

Among other features, the new version Google Earth 4.3 boasts improved zooming. For instance, zooming in from a full-Earth view gets the 3D map view zooming in normally. Closer the ground, the zoom feature behaves in a manner similar to a person parachuting to the ground. And once on ground, the user is instantly surrounded by a 3D landscape similar to that in 3D games.

Also, a 'Street View' feature stands added to Google Earth that allows users navigate by way of actual street photographs. Google Earth 4.3 boasts better lighting and landscapes load even faster thanks to better software rendering, according to Google. In addition, version 4.3 introduces an 'image acquisition' feature that lists dates when landscape images were taken as also a new and improved language pack with 12 more translations.

First launched in 2005, Google Earth is claimed to have been downloaded over 350 million times.

3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator 3D Mouse

3Dconnexion, a sister concern of peripheral manufacturer Logitech, has come up with the SpaceNavigator 3D mouse. Having a very unorthodox design for a mouse, it is actually the key element in its 3 dimensional maneuvering.

Its pressure sensing technology allows the user to push, pull, twist or tilt the cap by a fraction of inch to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D imagery. One can increase pressure to go fast or decrease pressure to make intricate adjustments.

The SpaceNavigator is mainly useful for people working with 3D applications. It is compatible with over 100 popular apps including 3D Max, AutoCAD, Maya and even Google Earth. It's priced at USD 60 (Rs. 2,400) and USD 100 (Rs. 4,000) for its Standard Edition (SE) and Personal Edition (PE) respectively.

Windows XP SP3 Pegged for Apr 21 Release

Reports seem to suggest that Microsoft will release the third and hopefully the last upgrade to its Windows XP operating system later this month. Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is expected to be released to manufacturing on April 21 and to the general public eight days later on April 29 through Microsoft's Windows Update service.

In March, Microsoft released a near-final beta version of Windows XP SP3 named 'Release Candidate 2 Refresh'. Till date, the company has always maintained it will release the final version Windows XP SP3 in the first half of this year. The soon-to-be-released Windows XP SP3 boasts 1,000 different hot fixes, including both new as well as previous patches since Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released in 2004.

Some of the new elements in XP SP3 include: Network Access Protection (NAP) claimed to automatically ensure that a computer is free of bugs and viruses before it can access any network; enhanced black hole router detection claimed to automatically detect routers silently discarding packets; and product activation that does not need product keys for each copy of the operating system to be entered during set-up.

And while users may crib endlessly about having to deal with yet another XP service pack, Microsoft itself might be in a bit of a 'devil or the deep blue sea' situation as concerns its XP and Vista operating systems. The more the company strengthens XP, the less users would feel the need to upgrade to Vista, which despite reports to the contrary, has suffered several nagging issues since its debut last year. Probably to balance off, Microsoft recently even released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) claimed to include over 300 hot fixes designed to improve the OS's speed, security, and stability.

Deleting Obstinate AVI Files

Have you ever had the problem that whenever you click on a particular, large AVI file (700 MB or bigger), Windows stops responding, with the CPU jumping to 100% usage? You can neither view the video, nor rename it, nor move or delete it. And this becomes an even bigger problem when you may have many files in a folder with thumbnail view on.

This problem generally occurs because the large AVI (700 MB is considered large) has no indexing information; it is absent in the file. Due to this, Windows tries to process each and every sector of the file to acquire the information, which can take a very long time - up to two hours or more.

So what makes an AVI corrupt?

1. The AVI structure might have gotten corrupted during download.
2. Partially downloaded files are considered corrupt as they are incomplete (but are still viewable many a time).
3. Some codecs or conflicting codecs (those that let the player play the movies) can cause this behaviour to occur.

There are several ways of fixing this but before I mention the tip to rectify the problem, note that these ways are unsupported by Microsoft; if you continue, you'll be doing so at your own risk. Nevertheless, this tip has been tried and tested. If you are more technically inclined, you can read it at the Microsoft site -- it's a solution suggested by the community. Microsoft recommends fixing this issue and a whole lot of others by updating to the latest Service Pack through Windows Update. If you have no patience for that -- it can take hours if you haven't kept abreast with the latest patches -- here is the manual way.

What this (manual) way does is, it removes the previewing of media files altogether (that means no thumbnails); this applies to only media files such as audio and video, and not photo files such as JPG, BMP, GIF, or PNG.

To remove previewing of media files:

1. Click Start | Run

2. Type in regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll. Click OK.

3. In an instant, you will get a dialog with the message "DllUnregisterServer in shmedia.dll succeeded."

To re-enable previewing of media files, do the same, except that you should now type in regsvr32 shmedia.dll. It's the same text without the /u.

You can do the same for photo formats if you like:
To remove photo preview, run regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll.
To re-enable photo preview, type in regsvr32 shimgvw.dll (without /u).

This is a blanket solution which cures any and all problems associated with previewing media files, whether it is video or audio. If the problem started to occur after, say, installing a different codec pack to view a movie, simply removing the codec pack in question should solve the problem.

If you don't want to disable and re-enable previewing of files, there is another solution that requires Registry-tweaking. What we are going to do in this solution is, allow us to access the file in question without Explorer crashing. Access equals clicking on the file, renaming it, moving it, or deleting it.

1. Click on Start | Run

2. Type in regedit and press OK.

3. What you need to look for is this PropertyHandler key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. The easiest way to do this is to right-click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, click Find, and type in SystemFileAssociations with no spaces.

4. Once regedit finds this, you need to go to PropertyHandler a few folders below. Therefore the entire path would be HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler.

5. In the right pane, right-click on Default, hit Delete, and then Yes to confirm. You'll need to close any open programs and restart the PC.

Personally, I prefer disabling preview of media files while keeping photo previews on, as previewing video files is just plain useless. When videos are previewed, basically only the first frame of the video appears, which may be plain black due to the fade-in effects. Plus, disabling preview speeds up browsing in the folder, and it's a lot safer to use a non-Registry trick. Nevertheless, it's a personal choice; feel free to use either of the methods.

Altek's GPS Digital Camera

We've recently seen Digital Cameras get bonus additions like a Wi-Fi module; by which one could upload the photos on the web instantly. And now Taiwanese company by the name Altek is planning to integrate a GPS module into a digital camera.

The purpose of the GPS module would be to record the latitude and longitude of where a photo is clicked. Thus, the photos can be later 'Geotagged' using popular software like Google Earth and websites like Flickr and Google Maps; which basically places the image on a location of the map where the picture was taken. Other than that, the camera would have an 8 mega-pixel sensor and a 3 inch touch-screen.