The HWU8DD – USB Wireless-G & Wireless-B Adapter for Desktop computers and Laptops

Published on January 26, 2010 in Computer, Internet and Laptop. 0 Comments

The HWU8DD is a Wireless Adapter, which you can use to connect your laptop or desktop computer to any Wireless-G or Wireless-B network, easily through a USB connection. Hawking, its makers say that its Hi-Gain Antenna technology provides a 300% increase in wireless connection distances. Your laptop or desktop computer can be connected to both Wireless-B or Wireless-G networks, using the HWU8DD. It is a Wi-Fi range extending product and a wireless network adapter. It extends wireless range and improves Wi-Fi performance.

Technical and operational details

It possesses an 8dbi directional dish antenna, unlike the average Wi-Fi adaptor that has a 2dbi connector. This antenna is touted to provide more distance and faster speeds compared to other available wireless adapters. Its bi-directional antenna improves connection quality and operating distance, while a standard omni directional antenna’s signal strength lessens with distance. However, it is not this new antenna alone that leads to stronger wireless connections. The HWU8DD is also dish shaped, which leads to it being highly directional. It has a maximum range of around 800 feet and its throughput is 22 Mbps. This wireless adapter integrates Wi-Fi networking with the distance benefits that wireless Dish Technology provides. The inbuilt LED signal strength indicators give network signal information, which help to pinpoint the most powerful signal available within an area. You can connect your Laptop to any Wi-Fi Network or your home/office Wireless Network for extended wireless coverage. The HWU8DD operates like a satellite dish. The dish catches wireless signals and then improves their reception. Being a directional antenna, you will need to point it in the general direction of your wireless router, to amplify that signal alone. A row of LED’s located in the front of the wireless dish, display signal quality and therefore adjusting the HWU8DD for the optimal signal is easy. You can tilt and rotate the dish, to aim it in the general direction of your router, thus achieving the best wireless signal possible. This ability to move the dish around to locate the best signals is one of the best features of the HWU8DD.

Considerations for a buyer and conclusions

The signal indicator aids you in positioning the dish to get the best signal, and is useful. The HWU8DD is priced at 99$. It is somewhat fragile, so you have to handle it carefully. The USB cord provided is rather short (about 5′), so you may need an extension in many cases. Only the operating systems – Windows Vista 32, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Me and Windows 98Se are supported with drivers, Linux and the kind aren’t supported. It is a bit bulky to carry round, but it’s still great to take along while traveling or when you go camping. You can use it to tap into a free Wi-Fi access point and thus don’t have to pay for Internet access. It also picks up a lot more signals than older adapter’s. The installation is easy and trouble free. The software provided is good as well.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Dell Latitude Z Business-Class Laptop with Wireless Charging

Published on September 30, 2009 in Laptop. 0 Comments

Dell Latitude Z

Dell has introduced a new Business class laptop the Latitude Z. The Lattitude Z has a ultra-thin profile and large 16-inch display. The system weighs just 4.5 pounds and is less than an inch thick. The laptop can be configured with two SSD drives for secure back-up, 4GB of RAM and either a 4 or 8-celled battery. But what makes it stand out is the wireless charging feature. A special dock (available as a $200 option) with a coil of wire inside connects with a coil on the bottom of the Latitude Z. When the two coils match up, the laptop battery is charged. The charge time is the same as the standard plugin.

There is also a wireless docking system that is separate from the wireless charging feature. The docking station connects to USB devices and an external monitor without plugging the laptop in. The range of the wireless dock is 12 feet which is kind of limited. But still useful.

The Latitude Z has a separate processor on the motherboard that provides an instant-on mode. The Latitude ON mode give faster access to the web browser, email, contacts, and calendars. The use of the low-power quick-boot mode extends battery life for days while idle.

The Latitude Z also offers document scanning functionality with the built-in 2-megapixel Webcam with autofocus capabilities. With this the user can scan paper documents and create PDF files.

The Latitude Z starts at $1,999. The price is not affordable to the average laptop user. But with all the top features, it is a must have for the busy executive.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

The Lenovo ThinkPad X300 – The slim and beautiful Ultraportable

Published on December 25, 2008 in Laptop. 14 Comments
The ThinkPad X300 is the most recent addition to the Lenovo line of notebooks. The ultraportable segment of laptops is hot these days and the X300 is another machine on the block. It is Lenovo’s answer to competitors like the Macbook Air and Asus Eee pc. It is lightweight at just over 3lbs and 1.1 inch thick when closed. The ThinkPad x300 has a 13.3-inch WXGA screen, which is bright and of excellent quality and is LED backlighted. The viewing angles are good, but are narrower than the Macbooks and a maximum resolution of 1280×800 is supported. It has a great design and solid build and is designed to withstand accidental drops and abuse. The full-sized keyboard is very comfortable. A decent sized touchpad with scrolling areas is also present on this little beauty.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300

The standard configuration consists of an Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100 with 1.2 GHz speed, 64GB SSD [solid state drive] which really improves the durability and performance of the laptop and can have 1-4 GB DDR2 SDRAM memory depending on your configuration. The X300 has Intel X3100 integrated graphics on board. It has a microphone, stereo speakers, integrated web cam and fingerprint reader. Further options are there for wireless USB or mobile broadband. It is a high-end laptop and costs around $3,300 at this time. Compared to MacBook Air, it has better features, but performance in certain tasks is below par. The cost is also higher.The MacBook Air is thinner, but as it has fewer ports, no removable battery and no optical drive – the X300 beats it on practicality. This notebook lags behind a little in the area of connectivity. It has only Ethernet, 3 USB ports MIC/Headphone and VGA. It also has an inbuilt genuine GPS system. The things which are absent include a modem, PC/ExpressCard slot, memory card reader as well as a FireWire port. The connectivity and wireless options include Wi-Fi, UWB and bluetooth among others.

It gives options, which the MacBook Air doesn’t, such as wireless USB and mobile broadband. You can replace the hard drive and battery, in case of future upgrades. As mentioned earlier, the SSD increases its performance a lot. Performance is mixed, while it is quite enough for common tasks like Internet browsing, word processing or e-mail. It can multi-task easily plus easily run all your standard business applications, but it is not a gaming machine, as the X300’s integrated graphics aren’t great for playing 3D video games on, especially compared to some other laptops. The solid-state drive speeds up boot up times and things like running virus scans or loading programs. When it comes to processor-intensive work however, the MacBook Air’s faster processor makes it speedier than the X300. The X300 is also slower compared to somewhat larger laptops like Sony VAIO VGN-SZ780. The sound is very good on the X300. There is a choice of 3-cell Lithium-Polymer battery [4.3 hours quoted battery life] or a 6-cell one [6.5 hours quoted life]. Battery life is decent, and under normal usage conditions, it runs up to 3 1/2 hours on the 6 cell battery, which is good among notebooks of its class. Overheating is not a problem, thanks to the special low powered processor. Limited storage space is a problem and only about 40-45 GB is available on the solid-state drive 64GB after system essentials are taken into account. This space is quickly filled if you are like the average user. The Macbook Air has a similar issue.

The ThinkPad is a good choice if you are a windows user and want a new light thin and sleek ultraportable laptop. It’s meant to be the ultimate laptop for the business traveler, thanks to being so slim and ultraportable. It is feature rich with excellent wireless options, great keyboard and screen and not to forget the inbuilt optical drive. It is more practical compared to the Macbook Air. But the Lenovo X300 is neither the best performer, thanks to its underpowered processor nor the cheapest. It is a great ultraportable notebook with a superb design, excellent for business tasks but not for 3D intensive activities like Gaming. Due to its price it falls out of the reach of the average person, but is a great choice for a businessperson on the move.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Adobe Acrobat 9 – Bigger, better and now with Flash

Published on July 6, 2008 in Software. 3 Comments

Adobe Systems recently announced Adobe Acrobat 9, which incorporates Flash technology into the widely used PDF documents.

Because of Flash Integration, Acrobat users can now include videos and also application files compatible with flash player in PDF documents. Document recipients can utilize Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and use this content. Adobe says that Acrobat 9 turns static documents into dynamic communications. Users can also insert H.264 or FLV video for direct playback in both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. A variety of video formats may also be converted to FLV for playback in PDF.

Acrobat 9 also features a concept known as PDF Portfolios, that enables the unification of content in a single document, which will let users to put multiple media file types such as videos, documents and 3D objects in a compressed .pdf file format.

Live collaboration within PDF documents is also supported as well, through a group of services collectively called Acrobat.com and available in the form of a public beta release. It will have many applications. Utilizing this, a businessman may use Acrobat 9 and send contracts to his client, for example. Groups of people could work on a document in real- time via Acrobat.com. Integration of Acrobat 9 with acrobat.com also enables storage & sharing of PDF files. Adobe mentioned that it was all about extending Acrobat so that people could work better with documents. Featured at Acrobat.com are Adobe Buzzword, a web-based word processor, and ConnectNow, which can be used for online web-conferencing and desktop-sharing.

Other features include the ability to create PDF maps through import of geospatial files which retain metadata and coordinates and also the ability to Personalize a PDF Portfolio with customizable templates for branding & navigation. Another useful feature is that it is possible to compare and then highlight the differences between 2 different versions of a PDF file/document. PDF files can also be created using document scanning to PDF and automatically recognize text with optical character recognition (OCR).

Using AutoCAD, convert cad drawings to PDF with Acrobat PDFMaker button, preserving the document layers in AutoCAD. 2D and 3D CAD designs can also be converted to PDF for project collaboration without expensive CAD or viewer software.

Acrobat 9, comes in Standard, Mac OS X, Pro and Pro Extended editions, will be available in July. The Standard Edition contains basic forms capabilities only. The Pro version has many extra’s like a powerful forms designer. Acrobat 9 Extended edition includes Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES and Adobe Presenter. It provides capabilities like video conversion and 3D functionality. Moreover, PowerPoint documents may be converted into Flash & also be wrapped in a PDF.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

A look at the VUDU Set-Top Box

Published on April 21, 2008 in Entertainment. 0 Comments

The VUDU Box is labelled a TV’s new best friend and delivers thousands of movies and hot TV shows instantly, without the need for a computer directly to your television. This Gageet provides instant access to about 5000 movies and TV shows from any television. Movies and shows can be bought or rented.

It comes with high-def video, with video output of up to 1080i/1080p24 and looks very good on an HDTV. As for connections, it’s got HDMI, digital optical audio and other common options. It comes with a 250 GB hard drive to store movies. For connectivity, it has Ethernet and 2 USB ports for future storage options.

It also comes with various equipment and a quick start guide to get you watching movies on the VUDU quick and easy. VUDU requires a High-speed broadband Internet connection with a minimum bandwidth of 2 Mbps (3.0 advertised by ISP’s) for instant viewing of movies or less if you only want delayed viewing. You can check if your connection is good enough at http://speedtest.vudu.com/cdn1/.

It should be noted that VUDU are always adding new movies and TV shows to the available selection. The VUDU box is priced competitively at $295 which has been reduced since it’s 400$ release. It is a Gadget worth considering for the movie and TV show lover who wants to watch them instantly at good quality.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]