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Blog Post: My Favorite Time of Year Begins

Keith Combs

It is the holiday season. Cool weather, leather jackets, the sound of the leaves shaking to old man winter. Then there is the fall parade of cameras, gadgets and computers vying for your hard earned dollars. Today the parade begins. Windows 8.1 is officially available and our OEM partners...

on 18 Oct 2013
Blog Post: Anything interest you from CES 2013 this week?

Keith Combs

I browsed the articles and stories throughout the week, but I was pretty surprised at the stuff that didn’t interest me. I guess I expected more laptop news but there just wasn’t much on that front. My biggest surprise was the new Ultrabook™ specifications for Intel Haswell based ultrabooks. ...

on 12 Jan 2013
Blog Post: SALE: Microsoft Store Clearance on Samsung Series 9

Keith Combs

Earlier this year Samsung launched the second generation Series 9 notebook. It’s a beautiful machine. Today I noticed the Microsoft Store has the 13.3” Sandy Bridge model discounted $500 down to $799. See http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/Samsung-Series-9-900X3BA02...

on 19 Jul 2012
Blog Post: Intel announces part of their SSD Strategy - 310 Series

Keith Combs

“SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 29, 2010 – Intel Corporation announced today the Intel® Solid-State Drive (Intel® SSD) 310 Series, an ultra-small solid-state drive (SSD) that delivers Intel® X25-class award-winning SSD performance , but in one-eighth the size. Measuring 51mm-by-30mm and only 5mm thick, the...

on 30 Dec 2010
Blog Post: Guess what I have? Yep, the Lenovo ThinkPad T410s Optimus

Keith Combs

I’ll be blogging some thoughts and test results soon. Impressive machine .

on 5 Nov 2010
Blog Post: Brush your teeth and shave – LifeCam Cinema HD on the way?

Keith Combs

I have not seen an official announcement so I have no idea if it’s real or a mock-up. But if it’s real, I want it. Especially if it works with Camtasia, Expression Encoder 3 and Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition 9 and above. My screencasts will never be the same and it’s looking like it’s time to buy...

on 18 Aug 2009
Blog Post: Lenovo ThinkPad X301 - mini review

Keith Combs

I've been using the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 for almost three weeks now so before too long I'll have to return the eval unit I have. With that in mind I thought now would be a good time to run down all of the pro and cons for the unit I have. You'll be happy to know there are very few cons. But...

on 26 Nov 2008
Blog Post: Here are some great UC demos – Roundtable and Laptop UC

Keith Combs

John Weston is the subject matter expert on our team for the Microsoft unified communications products. He recently setup his camera at a meeting and captured some demos while talking to the audience. If you haven't seen these products in action, be sure to watch both of the following videos...

on 1 Nov 2008
Blog Post: Thumbs up or down for the new Macs?

Keith Combs

My current MacBook Pro is coming up on it’s one year anniversary. It’s hardly old and in pristine shape. I baby all the machines I have. Scratch free is a good thing if you decide to sell. But should I sell the one I have? Today Steve Jobs took the wraps of the new machines. ...

on 15 Oct 2008
Blog Post: Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

Keith Combs

I recently had the opportunity to take a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad W500 (model 4061-2KU). This machine is really similar to my ThinkPad T61p in many ways, but there are some improvements that have been made in some key areas. Click the image at right for a high resolution image of the ThinkPad...

on 30 Sep 2008
Blog Post: And you think your ThinkPad is fast…

Keith Combs

Lenovo ThinkPad W500 out-of-box experience. I received a new Lenovo ThinkPad W500 evaluation unit Friday morning and thought you might be interested in the screenshot above. I’ll be writing more later but until then, suffice it to say that this baby is fast. I also have another hard...

on 14 Sep 2008
Blog Post: Do you have your Quad core laptop on order?

Keith Combs

The next wave of processing power for laptops has begun. OEM’s have been quietly adding laptops to their online buying configurators. If you are curious about the specs for the processors, Intel has published the spec for the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 . As you can see, they are positioning...

on 25 Aug 2008
Blog Post: How many applications are you starting with Windows? Here’s 36

Keith Combs

I was on a thread today regarding some issues a user was having with their laptop. The msinfo32.exe information was requested and received. I was looking at the usual stuff then expanded the Startup Programs node of information and saw the list below. OMG. Folks, don’t let your...

on 15 Aug 2008
Blog Post: What KVM switch are you using?

Keith Combs

I recently upgraded my KVM switch. The number of machines I use on a continual basis had grown beyond two and I really need a better 4 port unit. I ended up buying the IOGEAR GCS-1744 (pictured at right). This particular KVM switch is also a dual monitor device that of course allows you to...

on 31 Jul 2008
Blog Post: New Fad, Vertical USB Ports

Keith Combs

It’s pretty apparent to me the design engineers for some of the coming laptops have never used a USB cell phone data card. I see a number of new machines coming out and they’ve decided to turn the USB ports so that they are no longer horizontal. Lenovo has certainly done this with the soon...

on 17 Jul 2008
Blog Post: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Keith Combs

I received a flurry of questions via email when I posted information the other day that I had 8GB of memory in my Apple MacBook Pro . At the time of my post, I had only intended to boot the OS and see that it appeared to work correctly, recognize the updated amount of memory and shutdown cleanly...

on 10 Jul 2008
Blog Post: Loading a HP 6910p with 8GB of RAM

Keith Combs

As you probably are already aware, I received a couple of 4GB 200pin DDR2 SoDIMMs from Kingston for testing with my ThinkPad T61p. Almost immediately I received requests to borrow those SoDIMMs so they could be tested with other machines. Phat chance. Cold dead hands. But this weekend after getting...

on 6 Jul 2008
Blog Post: Laptop Multimon with the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition

Keith Combs

A few days ago I ordered the Matrox DualHead2Go Digital Edition . You are probably wondering what I am talking about. It's a cool device that allows a laptop, or a regular PC for that matter drive two monitors in one of the Windows Vista " Multimon " modes. I've been...

on 10 May 2008
Blog Post: T-minus 7 days for Apple speculation

Keith Combs

It's less than seven days now before Apple pulls the covers off their next round of products. We do know of course OS X v10.5 goes on sale at 6pm next Friday, but what else might they reveal at that time? If you were Steve Jobs, what additions or changes would you make to the product line...

on 20 Oct 2007
Blog Post: The US Evangelism Team locks down our demo platform

Keith Combs

I'm part of a team known as Microsoft Across America (MSAM) . Each year we work with a sponsor to come up with the platform we'll be using to demonstrate Microsoft products during our live events and seminars. Last year it was Lenovo and this year we'll be using a HP laptop. So what laptop was selected...

on 25 Sep 2007
Blog Post: Lets ride the "Santa Rosa" wave

Keith Combs

Yesterday Intel and nearly every major OEM announced the initial wave of new laptops based on the "Santa Rosa" chipset's. The laptop world as you know it just changed, big time. Faster processors, more addressable memory, next generation video support, etc. In short, power users hungry for a portable...

on 10 May 2007
Blog Post: People, Process and Technology sometimes collide

Keith Combs

I'm the people part of the equation. Recently the process and technology ran right over me and turned me into IT road kill. So what happened? Could it have been avoided? Definitely... Let's set this up by describing my typical work environment. Like many field employees, I am a mobile worker. When I...

on 7 Apr 2007
Blog Post: Dell will begin offering Linux

Keith Combs

Apparently Dell has decided to start offering desktop and laptop machines preinstalled with Linux. The models have not been announced. The Linux distros that will be tested and certified have not been announced. They actually used the word certification at http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx...

on 29 Mar 2007
Blog Post: Solid State SATA Drives are coming - utter lust

Keith Combs

Although this drive size barely meets my minimum needs (64GB), the thought of booting Windows Vista from solid state memory in the primary SATA slot of my laptop give me goose bumps. I mean think about it... No moving drive heads, lower heat, lower power consumption, etc. Technology is freaking great...

on 13 Jan 2007
Blog Post: What 64bit machine should I get?

Keith Combs

I need to purchase or lease some 64bit laptops very soon. I'd love to hear your opinions on what to get. They will be used initially for virtualization, high performance and compute cluster testing. However, I'd like to leverage the knowledge around the machines for the next platform refresh for my team...

on 8 Oct 2006