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Intel Atom Processor
I was looking to buy a new laptop a couple of weeks ago and I was surprised by the high number that utilise Intel Atom CPU. This has not been covered in any of my articles so I though it was about time we talked about it.
The Intel Atom has been designed to compete primarily with the ARM Processor; due to its power saving features this processor is particular popular in mobile devices such as PDA's (Personal Digital Assistant), GPS (Global Positioning System) and Mobile Phones. Power...
Web OS
It was suggested to me this week that perhaps I should do an article on the fairly recent developments in the field of web Operating Systems although I'll be honest that I started out not really understanding the point of such a concept and even after researching this article I'm afraid to say that I still don't.
A WebOS is a virtual Operating System that runs in your web browser. The term 'Operating System' is a little misleading as a WebOS is in fact a set of applications running in your...
Living with Windows 7
I've had the release candidate of Windows 7 for nearly a month now and think moving back to Vista again is going to prove to be a chore.
Unlike the change from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 or from Windows ME to Windows XP there are no revolutionary changes. Windows XP users will notice the most difference in terms of the look and feel of the software as visually it looks very similar to Vista, perhaps just a little more intuitive.
Using this software you get the impression that finally Windows...
HDD Enclosures
I was speaking to a young chap last week who had been saving up for an external hard drive. He'd filled up his Dads laptop with an entire library of music and desperately didn't want to delete it but at the same time the machine was unusable due to a lack of space. Rather than pushing him down the route of a £70 external hard drive we suggested opting for a hard drive enclosure for £6.50 then reusing the drive from his old computer which was about to be consigned to the scrap heap.
External...
Windows 7 Hidden Gems
Windows 7 has a few hidden features which many users may simply gloss over. I wanted to take the time to show you these hidden gems.
Aero Shake - In Windows 7, when you click on the title bar of any window and shake it every other open window gets minimised straight back in to your taskbar, reducing clutter on your screen. This allows you to focus on the one window and then when ready shake it again and the other windows will reappear.
Additional Aero features include Aero Snap which...
Google Presents Google Chrome OS
? Here at Refresh we were excited to hear Google are planning to release their own operating system late 2010.
Initially targeted at Netbooks (incredibly small laptops with relatively low specifications), Google Chrome OS will be a lightweight, open source alternative to Windows. It will be designed primarily for online use, with the entire OS essentially consisting of the Google Chrome browser running on a Linux backend.
The idea being that in the future developers will produce web based...
Online Google Books Database
Google Books is a project to attempt to catalogue every book every written.
While the first scan was done manually on a 300 page book and took 40 minutes to process, Google now use cameras capable of scanning at a rate of 1,000 pages an hour and also work with 20,000 publisher partners who provide content directly. They have also been able to provide over 1 million books that can be read in full from cover to cover; these unrestricted works are either books that have fallen out of copyright...
Essential PIM Free Electronic Organiser
Sometimes I miss not seeing what I would call the stereotypical 80's businessman; I was a little too young to take note at the time but when I look back I always envisage a man with a long black ponytail, dressed in an expensive suit and carrying a briefcase. This briefcase would surely contain a Filofax, the size of which would be directly correlated to how important you wanted to be considered by those around you.
In the 00's we appear to have lost the Filofax only to have it replaced by...
WordPress Review version 2 8 5
It's been a year now since I was first properly introduced to WordPress and started using it to create an online archive of my work. Over the last 12 months I have grown to appreciate the power and flexibility of this piece of online blogging software and feel the need today to go in to a little more detail.
WordPress is a free and open source publishing application which gives home users the ability to quickly and easily create an online blog using their own domain name. Blogging is the...
Benchmarking FAQ
Although it is usually possible to get a vague idea on how well your computer will operate simply by looking at the system specification sheet, this will not always give you an accurate reflection of the machines performance. So for that reason , those who want to get a truthful idea of the speed of their machine will often run a piece of benchmarking software.
Benchmark programs work by testing performance characteristics of individual sections of your computer; for example the number of...
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