End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Simple, Economical Ways to Refresh An Old Laptop

My primary laptop is an HP 8510w. It’s about thirty months old..and I don’t yet hate it…which is a sure sign that it was truly a nice machine when I first got it. This was my second HP laptop after a long history of using Dell models. Given any choice at all I won’t ever go back to Dell.

Under normal circumstances my employer would agree to replace the machine after three years (36 months) use. Some companies, like Exxon-Mobile where my brother-in-law works, would push that out to 48 months. When a laptop gets to be four years old it’s usually very slow & compared to current technology. It becomes a source of frustration. At least for my activities, which are graphics heavy, there’s a very real argument for a 36 month upgrade cycle.

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Amazon: You Got Some ‘Splaining To Do

Over the past week friend and VUC regular contributor Fred Posner has been suffering a SIP attack from someone using the Amazon EC2 cloud. Fred’s more than just a  friend, he’s a well established small businessman and an upstanding member of the Asterisk user community.

On his VoIP Tech Chat blog Fred has documented with outstanding clarity his attempts to report the attack that he has suffered this past week, and Amazon’s rather limited response. My opinion is that Fred has done exactly as he should in his efforts to report the attack. It’s Amazon’s response that has fallen short.

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Deal Alert: Gigaset S79H vs SL78H or S67H

Well isn’t this kind of curious? The newer Gigaset S79H handset is being offered on Amazon for $69.95. In contrast the older S67H handset is being offered for $63.08. Both are expansion handsets intended to be an addition to an existing Gigaset systems. They’ll work just fine with either the A580 or S675 base.

The difference in price is very slight given that the S79H actually has some of the features of the SL78H handset, which is offered for a whopping $149.95. The S79H has a 2.5mm standard wired headset connector like the S67H, but also a mini-usb connector for use with the Gigaset QuickSync software. That means that you can conveniently sync up to 500 contacts from Outlook. It also has a handy alarm function and rational volume buttons on the side of the handset.

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OnSIP On The iPad

Clearly, some people have just too much time on their hands. The release of the iPad has garnered a lot of attention this week. As I've mentioned elsewhere it doesn't suit my needs especially well, but I accept that its…

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One Mans Decision: Netbook vs iPad

On this weekend that Apple is launching their latest revolutionary wunder-device, the iPad, I find myself thinking about the past year carrying a little netbook.

It’s about a year ago that I bought my first netbook, the HP Mini 2140. I pondered that purchase for several months wondering which model netbook was best suited to my needs. There were and remain are so many models, so very similar in most ways. In particular I needed insight into using the smaller keyboard.

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