This is a pretty wild device, with the whole “Minority Report” thing going. A computer table. Microsoft is calling it “Surface”.

Here’s a “Hands-on” from PC Week

PC World has a story here

All in all, very new. We’ll have to see if it amounts to anything more than something fancy for casinos and upscale hotels.

Well, that ‘s what they say, anyway. This has been in the works for a while, but now looks like it might actually happen.

DRM – “Digital Rights Management” – is how the media companies (mainly music and video) restrict your use of products you purchase from them. Like where you buy a song on-line and you are allowed to play it three times over three days on two devices sold by four manufacturers…very silly.

Having an iPod that plays only music bought from iTunes fits this scenario. While you can mess with an iPod and get past some of that, you shouldn’t have to. It’s like I go in to a music store and buy a CD from a band, and that band is promoted by Sony, so now the CD only plays in CD players sold by Sony. Would any of us put up with that? Of course not. (Although some record companies now sell CDs with DRM built in…man, these people just don’t get it.)

Apple likes to say they are against the ‘principles’ of DRM, but they still live off it. They may be ready to loosen up, but we’ll have to see.

And the music industry wonders why they sell less music these days, and why there is so much “piracy”. Harrumph…they bring it on themselves. But this wasn’t supposed to be a rant…

Anyhow, Amazon says they will sell DRM-free music: you buy it, you own it. Play it where you want, on what you want: it’s yours. We’ll see if this actually plays out; if it does, it would be a real improvement to the current offerings. It should be better than the Napster/Rhapsody subscription model, too. At this point, it looks to be limited to MP3 files, but that is at least a start.

DailyTech has a story on it here

eWeek has a story here

CNet.com has a story here

From a CNet.com article:

Intel will roll out Vista internally only once the first service pack of the operating system has been released, and Dell is likely to do the same.

The usual feelings: Microsoft ships the “final beta”, and lets all of us be the “final 50 feet of the assembly line”. Service Pack 1, due by the end of the year, is the real shipping product. Intel and Dell, for the computers they own and use, aren’t going to mess with it until then.

As for vista, I have become pretty darn used to it and like it now, but I am still having some video problems and need more RAM (and I already have 2GB of pretty fast RAM!).

Read it here

AT&T expands broadband via satellite service

AT&T Inc. Tuesday announced the expansion of AT&T Yahoo Broadband via Satellite, provided by WildBlue, to homes and businesses across the company’s 22-state wireline footprint, focusing on areas that otherwise have little or no access to a broadband connection.

The announcement marks first-time satellite Internet service availability from AT&T for consumers in the former BellSouth nine-state region, and substantially increases availability to areas not addressed in the company’s previous launch of satellite-based broadband Internet to residential customers in AT&T’s traditional 13-state service territory. The expansion directly supports the company’s effort to deliver broadband service to millions of customers in rural and remote areas, where DSL and cable-modem service are typically not available today, providing an important alternative for customers currently using dial-up service.

“Since we began offering high speed Internet service, our goal has been to make the benefits of broadband available to every home and business in our service footprint,” said Rick Welday, chief marketing officer of AT&T Consumer. “From traditional wireline broadband to satellite-broadband service, our focus continues to be on widescale deployment and availability in both rural and suburban communities alike, where consumers are eager for broadband access,” said Welday.

AT&T Yahoo Broadband via Satellite customers can select from three service packages, starting as low as $54.95 a month, and broadband speed options of up to 1.5 Mbps downstream and up to 256 Kbps upstream.

The satellite-based broadband offering today builds on an initial announcement made in May 2006. Over the past year, AT&T and WildBlue have worked closely to increase capacity and expand access to more customers.

“From our previous launch of satellite-based broadband service, we quickly learned that consumers were eager to embrace this form of high speed Internet access,” said Welday. “Consumers see this as a welcomed alternative to dial-up service, as does AT&T — a valuable technology that further promotes and delivers the benefits and advantages of broadband.”

Rural, satellite-based broadband subscribers will receive direct access to the AT&T Yahoo portal and the leading service features available with AT&T’s broadband service. Customers will benefit from a unique online experience, including differentiated entertainment-related video content; virtually unlimited e-mail storage; an award-winning parental controls offering; industry-leading safety and security features built into an online protection suite; multiple e-mail addresses; and a core offering of customer-driven features, such as online marketing tools, to further customize the online experience.

Customers can receive additional service information and can confirm availability in their area by calling (800) ATT-2020.

This looks very interesting. We have heard about this technology for a while, but it looks like it might be getting closer to reality. Yahoo Tech News has a pretty good piece on it.

Read it here

This looks pretty interesting: BlackBerry has a new product out that looks to be a bit more consumer-friendly. A little more media friendly, too, with a better camera and media player, that sort of thing. A pretty neat form factor, too, with a full QWERTY keyboard and thin layout.

They call it the “Curve”.

This does look like an excellent unit, and should prove to be just as popular for the business BlackBerry user, too. I am looking forward to getting one of these in my hot little hands to check out in the flesh.

It is getting excellent reviews. I have a few linked here.

PC World has a review here

PC Magazine review here

CNet.com review

CNet.com has a slideshow here

We get asked this a lot — “what do I do with my old computer equipment?”

Dell Computers, in a partnership with Goodwill Industries, will take your old stuff. They take what you drop off and recycle or resell, whatever fits. Old computers, printers, monitors, whatever.

The Goodwill Industries in northern Michigan are participating. This is a very nice deal for us up here the great north.

Here is the link describing the “Reconnect Partnership”

This link shows participating northern Michigan Goodwill Industries

Remember, before you dispose of your computer and/or hard drive, “shred” the data! Formatting the hard drive is not sufficient — data is very easily recoverable if you merely format (not to mention, just delete) data from your hard drive.

Here is a good how-to link on how to “shred” your hard drive

It’s a biggie, but has lots of valuable info if you on the Vista bandwagon (I am).

Vista takes a little getting used to, and be sure you have the horsepower, plus compatibility issues remain with both software and hardware. But once you get past some of those little speedbumps it runs pretty darn good.

These tips run the gamut from silly to useful, as you would expect from most any “top 50 tips” list. That being said, this is a very worthwhile reference all in all.

Find the list here