The new Commodore 64.
Who lived through the 1980s and doesn't remember the Commodore 64, which
remains the best selling computer of all time? It was the top selling
home computer for several years and also made significant inroads in
the education market.
Well, it's back - sort of. The new Commodore 64 (covered below) looks a lot like the original, but it's a
whole different beast under the hood: 1.83 GHz dual-core Atom CPU,
Nvidia graphics, HD video output, and a built-in SuperDrive (Blu-ray is
an option) put it in a whole different class than the 1 MHz
original, although it has the same $599 list price.
Mac notebook and other portable computing is covered
in The 'Book Review. iPad, iPod,
iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in The
iNews Review.
News & Opinion
Tech Trends
Products & Services
Software
News & Opinion
Vatican Hails Linux and Wiki Cultures
The Register's John Leyden reports that a Vatican magazine argues
that "hackers of Linux coding and hardware modification type" are on a
mission from God,* noting that Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, writing
in the fortnightly magazine Civilta Cattolica, seeks to
rehabilitate the term hacker and divorce it from its more common
association with cybercriminal activities, drawing parallels between
the ethics displayed by the Linux community and Wiki contributors with
the teachings of Christianity.
* Publisher's note: Who could resist a Blues Brothers link
here? dk
Link: Vatican Hails
Hacking Culture, Wikis
Year-Over-Year Decline in PC Shipments, but Apple
Growing
PR: Worldwide PC shipments totaled 84.3 million units in the
first quarter of 2011, a 1.1% decline from the first quarter of 2010,
according to preliminary results from Gartner, Inc. Although the first
quarter is traditionally a slow one for PC sales, these results
indicate potential sluggishness, not just a normal seasonal slowdown.
These figures are below Gartner's forecast for 3% growth in the first
quarter of 2011.
Meanwhile, Apple's Mac sales grew a whopping 18.9% in Q1 '11 and
were by far the strongest in the PC industry - and that's excluding
iPad sales, with 1.49 million Macs shipped in the quarter (up from 1.25
million in 2010), and Apple's market share growing from 7.3% in 2010 to
9.3% in 2011.
The only other company to show market share growth in the first
quarter was Toshiba, while HP fell 3.5%, Dell 12.1%, and Acer down
24.9%.
"Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth,"
said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Low prices for
consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted
buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and
other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either
switched to buying an alternative device or simply held back from
buying PCs. We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a
long-term effect on the PC market."
Steady growth in the professional PC sector, driven by the
replacement cycle, was a bright spot for the global PC market. Without
the professional segment growth, the PC market could have experienced
one of the worst declines in its recent history. Replacement sales will
generally continue into late 2011 or the start of 2012, with some
variations between different regions and market segments.
HP performed below the worldwide average but maintained the No. 1
position, accounting for 17.6% of worldwide PC shipments in the first
quarter of 2011. HP was impacted by weak consumer PC demand, as well as
growing issues in Asia/Pacific. Acer continued to face challenges as
the mini-notebook (netbook) market was impacted by media tablets, and
its shipments declined 12.2%.
In the first quarter of 2011, Dell experienced a shipment decline
year-over-year for the first time in six quarters. Dell underperformed
in the US; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Latin
America, but it achieved strong growth in Asia/Pacific. Lenovo
experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors (16.6%) as
it continued to price its products very competitively in both the
consumer and professional sectors. It achieved strong growth across all
regions.
In the US, PC shipments totaled 16.1 million units in the first
quarter of 2011, a 6.1% decline from the first quarter of 2010. "As
with the worldwide market, the US PC market was affected by the hype
surrounding media tablets. This was the third consecutive quarter of
mobile PC shipment declines in the US," Ms. Kitagawa said. "The US
professional PC market showed steady growth across all sectors.
However, the public sector showed more than the normal seasonal
weakness due to budgetary issues."
HP continued to lead the US market with its market share increasing
to 26.2%, despite a shipment decline of 3.5% in the first quarter.
While HP struggled in the consumer PC market, it also encountered tough
price competition in the professional segment, especially in the
midmarket.
Dell faced tough competition in both the US consumer and
professional markets. The challenge for Dell arose in the midmarket,
where more vendors tried to squeeze in to benefit from professional PC
refresh cycles.
Apple maintained strong shipment growth, even after the holiday
season. The MacBook Pro refresh at the end of February accelerated
already strong Mac growth.
PC shipments in EMEA totaled 26.1 million units in the first quarter
of 2011, a 2.8% decline from the first quarter of 2010 (see Table
3).
"The PC market in EMEA had not exhibited decline since the third
quarter of 2009 when the market declined 8.9%," said Ranjit Atwal,
research director at Gartner. "The excess inventory accumulated at the
end of the fourth quarter of 2010 was reduced slowly, especially as
some of the delayed Sandy Bridge products entered the market in March.
The seasonal trend was also weaker than expected, indicating that the
downward trend seen at the end of 2010 continued into the first quarter
of 2011."
Western Europe remained the main area of weakness in EMEA, as
consumers continued to delay spending disposable income on PCs or other
products like media tablets, especially after the launch of the iPad 2.
This is extending current PC life cycles.
In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments surpassed 28.2 million units in the
first quarter of 2011, a 4.1% increase from the first quarter of 2010.
PC purchases by consumers remained weak, especially in China and
Taiwan. PCs were not high on consumers' shopping lists during the
Chinese New Year holiday. In India, consumers were distracted by the
Cricket World Cup. They also preferred to upgrade or purchase new TVs
or other home electronics.
The PC market in Latin America grew 5.4% in the first quarter of
2011, as shipments totaled 8.1 million units. Brazil accounted for over
40% of Latin America's PC shipments. As PC vendors' interest in Brazil
grows, so does competition. Local PC vendors are particularly
vulnerable, as their strength lies in the production of desk-based PCs.
Multinational vendors are making inroads by selling less-expensive
mobile PCs.
PC shipments in Japan declined 13.1% in the first quarter of 2011,
with shipments reaching 4 million units. The earthquake and tsunami on
March 11 reduced PC shipments, and Gartner analysts are still
investigating the scale of the impact on the market in first quarter.
The impact of the disaster was most evident in the professional PC
market, where the second half of March is the year's busiest
procurement period.
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available
soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by
Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture
of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution,
marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and
their future implications around the globe. Additional research can be
found on Gartner's Computing Hardware section on Gartner's website.
Link: Market Share
Alert: Preliminary PC Market Results, Worldwide, 1Q11
Tech Trends
Commodore USA Recreates the Legendary
Commodore 64
PR:
The new Commodore 64 is a modern functional net-top PC designed to be
as close to the original in design as humanly possible. It houses a
modern mini-ITX PC motherboard featuring a 1.83 GHz Intel Dual-Core 525
Atom processor and the latest Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset. It comes in
the original taupe brown/beige color, with other colors to follow.
A Keyboard Better Than the Original
The new Commodore 64's keyboard features genuine Cherry brand
mechanical key switches, which Commodore USA says provide a feel much
better than the original, with that IBM classic "clicky" action and
sound that some users relish. The keys are the exact same shape as the
original and are color matched.
Modern Media for a Modern Day C64
The new
Commodore 64 also features a slot or tray load DVD±R/W (Blu-ray
is optional) on the left side of the unit.
The base Commodore 64 comes with 2 GB of DDR3 memory and is
expandable to 4 GB. A multiformat card reader/writer and a USB slot are
provided on the right side of the unit. There are an additional 4 USB
slots on the rear of the unit to cover peripheral needs. The classic
power light is now the power button.
Connects to Today's TVs and Monitors
The new
Commodore 64 can be connected to the latest televisions and monitors,
and supports 1080p HD quality video playback and 6 Channel High
Definition Audio to enhance the home theater experience. It also
incorporates wireless N WiFi for wireless home LAN and Internet video
streaming support.
On the new Commodore 64 you can play your favorite 8-bit era games
by either selecting the C64 icon from the boot menu to run a C64
emulator directly, or from a media center program within the Commodore
Operating System. Commodore OS 1.0, along with emulation functionality
and classic game package, will be mailed to purchasers when available.
In the meantime, units come with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating system
on CD ready to install.
The Commodore 64 is intended to be a fully functional PC compatible,
so you can install and use the latest versions of Windows if you really
feel you need to. Commodore provides a graphical boot menu at start up
from which Windows can be selected to run, so you needn't lose any of
the functionality of the new C64's included Commodore operating
systems.
Prices for the new Commodore 64 range from a base $250 (case,
keyboard and motherboard) to $895 when spec'd out with with 1 TB
data storage, 8 GB of memory, built-in 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi, and a
Blu-ray drive, and three price points in between depending upon
equipment levels.
Commodore VIC-Pro
Commodore VIC-Slim
For more performance, also offered are a VIC-Pro née
Commodore Phoenix with a choice of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPUs
integrated graphics at $495 to $1195, and a VIC-Slim with essentially
the same spec as the C64, but in a contemporary case form factor.
Link: Commodore 64
Products & Services
OWC Mount Pro Drive Sled Adds 2.5" SATA Drives to
2009 and 2010 Mac Pro
PR: Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the OWC Mount
Pro drive sled for adding any 2.5" Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drive or
Solid State Drive (SSD) to 2009 and later Apple Mac Pro 'Nehalem' and
'Westmere' models. Manufactured with the highest quality processes and
materials including powder coated aircraft grade aluminum, the $24.99
MSRP bracket comes backed by a lifetime warranty.
"These
high quality brackets really make adding a 2.5" drive to a 2009 and
later Mac Pro Plug and Play easy," says Larry O'Connor, Founder and
CEO, Other World Computing. "When you consider the dramatic results
adding an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD to a Mac Pro can achieve, the OWC
Mount Pro is really the key to unlocking Mac Pro performance."
Offers Plug & Play Addition of Performance Boosting OWC
SSD
Mac Pro owners seeking to dramatically increase system performance
can use the Mount Pro to add one of the fastest SSDs on the market, the
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, and experience data rates up to 285 MB/s.
The bracket comes with four drive mounting screws and replaces an
existing 3.5" drive tray. The OWC Mount Pro perfectly aligns the SATA
connector on the mounted 2.5" drive into the back plane SATA ports on
the Mac Pro.
With a highly durable blue powder coated finish, the OWC Mount Pro
looks great while also offering at a glance verification of which Mac
Pro drive bays contain 2.5" form factor drives. The open design of the
Mount Pro aids in drive heat dissipation.
Proclaimed The Best Solution by Leading Mac Performance Site
Leading Mac testing and benchmarking site, MacPerformancGuide.com, called the OWC Mount
Pro by far the best mounting solution yet for installing up to four
2.5" drives into a Mac Pro. The sled bolts the drive in securely and
allows far superior air flow to any other design.
The OWC Mount Pro is immediately available priced at $24.99 MSRP
from Other World Computing. It is compatible with all 2009 and later
Apple Mac Pros with Model ID 4,1 and 5,1.
For more information on OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs, visit http://bit.ly/dvo4Pj
For more information on nearly 200 upgrades and accessories from OWC
for the Apple Mac Pro, visit: https://eshop.macsales.com/search/Mac+Pro
Link: OWC Mount
Pro
Software
Opera 11.10 Released
PR: This latest new release of Opera brings enhancements and
new features. Here are some highlights:
Speed Dial 2.0
Opera's popular Speed Dial has been greatly enhanced; your favorite
pages now have clearer previews, and dials can even dynamically show
live content for websites.
There is now no limit to how many dials you can use, and it is
simple to adjust the Speed Dial view to best fit your setup.
Opera Turbo Enhanced
With improved compression, Opera Turbo is faster than ever. Boost
your browsing speed on crowded WiFi, hotspots, tethered mobile phones
or dial-up connections.
Simple Plugin Installation
Opera have made it easier to install and use plugins. With this
release, the most popular plugin, Adobe Flash Player, installs
seamlessly and automatically.
Great New CSS3 Support
This version of the Opera browser now supports CSS3 linear gradients
and multiple columns. The Opera browser shows webpages using the latest
and greatest standards in their full glory.
New Features
- Opera Presto 2.8 rendering engine
- Plugin installation wizard
- Added Search field to error pages
- Added support for SOCKS Protocol v.5
- Opera CSS cursor property values:
- User JavaScript:
- Added event: BeforeCSS
- Added event: AfterCSS
- URL Filter API for Opera extensions
- WebP
- W3C CSS Multicolumn Layout
- W3C CSS Device Adaptation (viewport)
- W3C CSS3 Gradients (partial support)
- W3C Web Open Font Format (WOFF)
- W3C File API (partial support)
Improvements
- Declarative UI
- Opera Dragonfly beta 1
Opera Mail
- Phrase searching support
- CJK search improvements
- Mail panel improvements
Speed Dial
- Added a new "logo finder" to dials
- Added ability to create custom titles
- Added animation
- Added column number adjustment
- Added zoom
- Improved flow layout
- New dialog when adding/editing
- Sites can now reload Speed Dials automatically
- The thumbnail/icon can now be chosen
Link: Opera
PDF Editor for Macintosh Lets Users Edit PDF
Documents and Extract to Microsoft Word
PR: Wondershare Software Co., Ltd. has announced the
availability of its new PDF Editor application for the Macintosh
platform. Scores of Adobe PDF document users around the globe have been
frustrated by the inability to edit PDF files or convert them to the de
facto industry-standard Microsoft Word format for editing. Even
annotating or adding comments to PDF documents can be a hassle without
upgrading to an expensive full version of Adobe Acrobat. The simple,
more affordable solution is Wondershare's PDF Editor, which allows Mac
users a simple, no-hassle way to edit text and images embedded in a PDF
document, add comments or annotations, or even extract the contents of
a PDF to a Microsoft Word 2008/2011 document for editing, preserving
the original fonts and formatting in most cases.
Wondershare's PDF Editor Mac is an indispensable tool for
businesses and consumers who regularly work with PDF documents. Key
features of PDF Editor Mac include:
- Easily edit PDF documents (even encrypted ones), with the ability
to add, delete, copy, and move text within the PDF with automatic font
matching;
- Add, delete, crop, resize or move images within a PDF;
- Extract a PDF (even encrypted ones) into a fully editable Microsoft
Word 2008/2011 document while preserving fonts and document
formatting/layout;
- Add comments to PDF files including highlighting text, underline,
or strike-through. Annotate PDF documents with drawing tools including
arrows, lines, ovals, and more. Even add links to PDF files for easier
navigation.
- Add, correct, copy, move, and delete text in PDF files
directly
- Support auto-matching system fonts for editing embedded font
text
- Insert, crop, resize, move, and delete images and graphics (.jpg,
.png, .tif, .bmp, etc.)
- Add and modify PDF properties
Convert PDF to Word Features:
- Preserve all the contents including layout and formatting after
conversion
- Able to convert encrypted PDF files to Word documents
- Allow to convert selected pages or page ranges from multipage PDF
files
- Support MS Word for Mac 2008/2011
Markup and Annotate Features
- Highlight, underline, and strike through text in PDF files
- Add Sticky Note and Text Box to share your comments
- Annotate with drawing tools: Arrow, Line, Rectangle, Oval, Polygon,
Cloud, Pencil, and Pencil Eraser
- Able to customize color and line-weight for all the markups and
annotations
- Add any links to PDF files for quicker navigation
More Features
- Bookmarking
- Add or remove bookmarks in PDF files for easier reading.
- 4 display types
- Single Page, Single Page Continuous, Double Pages, Double Pages
Continuous
PDF Editor Mac is currently available for $49.95 from the
Wondershare online store. A fully functional demo version is also
available allowing users to fully explore the capabilities of the PDF
Editor application; however, a watermark will be added to
edited/extracted documents (removed when upgraded to the full paid
version).
Link: PDF Editor for Mac
Accordance Bible Software 9.3 Adds Simplified
Interface, Daily Readings, and More
PR: Accordance continues to be on the leading edge of Bible
Software, both for the power of the searches and analysis of the texts,
the unique original language texts available, and the wide range of
available tools such as lexicons, commentaries, and journals. The
interactive and customizable Atlas and Timeline integrate with
different collections of images to illustrate the background of the
Bible.
Accordance 9 was a major upgrade offering more speed, power,
convenience, and aesthetic appeal than ever before. Improvements in
Accordance 9 include:
- Workspace zones make it easy to keep your Bibles, commentaries,
lexicons, and other study aids neatly arranged yet easily
accessible.
- The revamped Search All feature lets you search thousands of
resources in seconds and quickly browse the results to find what you're
looking for.
- Easy Install lets you install new resources over the web as soon as
you purchase them, with no physical media to ship or unlocking codes to
enter.
- Support for new syntactical analyses of original language texts
takes you beyond the meaning of individual words to show you how those
words function together.
Accordance Bible Software has released Accordance 9.3, a free update
to its industry-leading Macintosh Bible study software. Accordance 9.3
adds the following new features:
- The Assistant Window offers a more approachable interface for new
users
- Daily readings, accessible on startup, through the Assistant
window, or via a menu item, presents a new Bible reading or devotional
for each day of the year.
- Support for Asian language Bibles
- Global searches can now be sorted by several criteria, making it
easier to find the most relevant results
- A completely revamped and updated Help system
- Syncing between Mac and iOS applications enables users to keep
their modules and notes consistent across platforms
- The compare texts feature, which highlights differences between
Bibles, has been expanded to compare 3 or more texts at a time.
Accordance 9.3 can be downloaded from accordancebible.com, and is a
free update for all users of Accordance 9.0 or above. iOS syncing also
requires version 1.2 of
Accordance for iOS (free).
Accordance Bible Software is designed for Mac and iOS, offering
powerful Bible study tools to pastors, scholars, and individuals who
want to go deeper in their personal devotions.
Toll free orders (877)339-5855.
Link: Accordance
Desktop Mac
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