Notebooks.com

Deal of the Day: 25% off Dell Studio XPS 13 Laptops $1,599 or More

Xavier — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:19:53 +0000

Dell’s offering 25% off Dell Studio XPS 13 laptops priced $1,599 or more. The 13.3-inch laptop has a stylish black lid with leather accents. Free shipping is included. Visit LogicBuy for the coupon code and other great deals.

Dell Inspiron 14z Notebook Unboxed

Xavier — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:25:02 +0000

Jason Dunn recorded a thourough unboxing of the Dell 14z notebook. He opted for a red Inspiron 14z, the hi-resolution (1600×900 pixels) display and NVIDIA GeForce 9400G-M graphics.

If you’re interested in picking up an Inspiron 14z you should watch the below video so you can get an up-close view of what comes in the box and all the ports.

Jason likes the Inspiron 14z’s soft finish, keyboard and mouse buttons.

via DigitalHomeThoughts

Deal of the Day: $170 off IdeaPad Y550, $629

Xavier — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:20:41 +0000

Lenovo’s offering $170 off the IdeaPad Y550 for a limited time. The IdeaPad Y550 comes with 4GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and DVD burner. The discounted price includes free shipping. Visit LogicBuy for more details and the coupon code.

HP Sponsors Plastiki’s 10,000 Mile Voyage

Xavier — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:01:45 +0000

HP’s the official technology provider of the Plastiki, a 60-foot catamaran built out of plastic bottles and recycled materials. The crew will be sailing from San Francisco to Sydney later this year. During the expedition, the crew will be using an HP Elitebook 6930p notebooks and iPAQ 910C smartphones for the crew to use during the journey.

Plastiki’s Mission Control is located at Pier 45 on San Francisco’s historical Fisherman’s Wharf. The Mission Control Center at Pier 45 will be open Wednesdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors can learn more about how the Plastiki was built and track the Plastiki as it makes the 10,000 mile voyage.

The Elitebooks will be used for mapping and weather applications. The crew will have limited Internet access, but the weather prediction application will be run locally.

The crew’s vital signs will also be fed into the Elitebooks and transmitted back to shore. Visitors to AdventureEcology.com will be able to see how the crew members’ hearts race when they spot rare marine life or are stressed when they hit inclement weather.

Each crew of the six crew members will use an iPAQ 910C to type quick journal entires during the voyage.

I met up with the founders of the Plastiki project and HP’s Satjiv Chahil last week to talk about the project. A video of their presentation is below.

Deal of the Day: HP HDX 16t w/Blu-ray for $869.99

Xavier — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:56:32 +0000

HP’s offering up to $559 in savings on the HDX 16t. For $869.99 you can get an HP HDX16t with 4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, free Blu-ray upgrade and DeskJet printer. Visit LogicBuy for the coupon code and more great deals.

31 Days of the Dragon Wins HP Circle Award

Xavier — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:53:26 +0000

Notebooks.com and 30 other tech sites participated in a promotion called the 31 Days of the Dragon. The promotion recently won an HP Circle Award, which is quite an honor considering HP’s judges evaluated over 400 promo campaigns.

31 Days of the Dragon was organized by BuzzCorps, a company that has since changed its name to Ivy Worldwide, but what made the promo successful was all of the readers who sent in videos, photos and stories to Notebooks.com, GottaBeMobile and the rest of the participating sites.

About the HP Circle Awards:
Created to celebrate MARKETING AND DESIGN EXCELLENCE at the company, HP’s CIRCLE Awards have created some fierce internal competition. In 2009, the global technology leader saw an unprecedented 411 entries pouring in from 36 participating countries for the chance to be recognized with this prestigious award sponsored by HP’s GLOBAL MARKETING EXECUTIVES.

Entries were judged according to the CIRCLE criteria of Collaboration, Innovation, Relevance, Consistency, LEADERSHIP, and Effectiveness. The overall goal: to reward CREATIVITY, ROI and brand building. In the first round of judging, review panels from within HP chose finalists in each of 14 categories. In the second round, executive judges were invited to HP headquarters to select CIRCLE Award winners

Using the HP MediaSmart to Rip DVDs

Xavier — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:45:18 +0000

I’ve been using an HP Mediasmart for the past several months to backup all my PCs, archive my massive photo collection and stream music to all of my media players. This week I found a very easy way to rip my DVDs to my HP MediaSmart EX487.

Over the years of built up quite a collection of personal DVDs from family events, vacations and weddings. As precious memories are, these DVDs are stored in my closet and rarely watched. I wanted him to have easier access to all these memories and be able to share them on demand.

Instead of using one of my notebooks to rip the DVDs, I decided to use my HP MediaSmart Server. A DVD takes up about 4.7 GB of hard drive space, which means it’s not practical for me to store every DVD I have on one of my notebooks. But 5 GB will hardly put a dent in the storage capacity of my home server. The HP media smart EX487 came with to 750 GB internal hard drives and two empty hard drive bays. I fill those empty bays with two 1.5 TB hard drives. I also plugged in an external 1.5TB hard drive to the server’s eSATA port and 2 TB external hard drive to one of the servers USB 2.0 ports. This means my HP MediaSmart server has a total capacity of 8 TB, or enough room to store more than 1,700 DVDs.

I found a Windows home server add-in called My Movies that makes it incredibly simple to copy DVDs directly it on to an HP MediaSmart server.

After installing and configuring the My Movies, I plugged in the HP Blu-Ray drive that ships with the Pavilion dv2. I popped in a DVD and My Movies and the server went to work. After about 25 minutes the DVD ejected automatically, signaling that the duplication was completed.

All of the menus and chapters were intact, which means it looks and feels just like you have the DVD spinning inside of your computer.

I was able to watch my home movie on my Tablet PC, which does not have an internal DVD drive. External DVD drives are of course useful, but they are not ideal when you’re trying to share a video clip with families and friends at the dinner table or while sitting on a sofa.

The cool thing about this setup is that I can now rip my DVDs without really thinking about it. After the initial configuration you can rip two or three movies per hour by just placing the discs into the DVD drive. Copying DVDs takes a lot of computing resources and I prefer to have the server doing this work and freeing up my notebook’s memory and processor for other tasks.

In some countries, it is legal to copy Hollywood DVDs for personal use. If you’re willing to pay $100, you can install AnyDVD onto your HP MediaSmart Server so you can copy DVDs and Blu-Ray discs that you legally own.

Deal of the Day: HP G60t for $469.99

Xavier — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:10:51 +0000

HP”s offering the HP G60t for just $469.99 after a $100 instant discount and $10 discount. The HP G60t has a 16″ display, 250GB hard drive and 3GB of RAM. The G60t comes with your choice of a free HP Deskjet printer or $60 off a wireless printer. Visit LogicBuy for the coupon code or for more great deals.

Deal of the Day: 30% off InvisibleSHIELD for iPhone 3GS

Xavier — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:11:33 +0000

ZAGG is offering 30% off its super thin InvisibleSHIELD for iPHone 3GS. The InvisibleSHIELD protects your iPhone 3GS from scapes and scratches without adding any bulkk or thickness. Visit LogicBuy for the coupon code and for more great deals.

Gateway LT3200, 11.6″ Netbook Starts at $399

Xavier — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:30:07 +0000

Gateway’s introdiced te LT3100, its first 11.6″ netbook. The LT3100 weighs in at 3.14 pounds and will start at $399.99.

The LT 4100 will be available in a glossy black finish or in Cherry Red. It measures just over an inch thick.

The Gateway LT3100 will is powered by an AMD Atlon 64 L110 sincle-core processor and ATI Radeon X1270 graphics. It comes with up to 2GB of RAM and an optional 250GB hard drive. The optional six-cell battery will keep the Gateway LT3100 running for up to five hours on a single charge.

The Gateway LT3100 has an integrated webcam that can be used for video conferencing and taking quick photos.

Gateway LT3100 specifications:

-AMD Athlon™ 64 Single-Core Processor L110 (1.20 GHz, 512KB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
-11.6-inch WXGA High Definition LED back-lit display (1364 x 768 resolution and 16:9 ratio)
-2048MB DDR2 SDRAM Single Channel Memory
-Integrated ATI Radeon™ X1270 Graphics
-250GB SATA 5400RPM Hard Drive(1)
-Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
-802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
-Integrated Web Camera
-Two Built-in Stereo Speakers
-Three USB 2.0 Ports
-6-cell Li-ion Battery
-11.26W x 7.99D x 1.03H inches
-NightSky Black
-Microsoft Windows Vista Basic with Service Pack 1
-One-Year Standard Warranty
-Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price: $399.99