Monthly Archives: August 2013

Things to Look For When Buying a New Notebook PC

Since I’ve recently bought a new notebook, which I want to use while I’m away from home, to work, I’ve looked a bit into what one should know when buying something like that, and the things that matter.

everbuying 1I’ve bought my new notebook from Everbuying PC (I’ll take the opportunity to recommend these guys if you want to buy a new gadget for yourself). If you browse around their store you will notice that they have a wide selection of products, but we’ll focus on the notebooks today, since that’s the topic for this article.

Buying a Notebook PC is not a difficult job, but there are a couple of things you should know before you start the search, things that will make your job considerably easier, since it will eliminate certain models from the get go.

Your Budget – the budget is a huge part of the search, since you can eliminate many models based on what you’re willing to spend. Generally, the higher the price, the better the product, but there are cases when you will get a lot of quality for the money you pay. With some companies (like Apple), you pay for the packaging as well, not just for the specs. It’s up to you whether you opt for something that costs extra because of the design quality.

1365462860287-P-730010Mobility Requirements – there is also the question of just how mobile you need to be with your new Notebook PC. There are two things that matter here. The first one is the size of the screen. A 10 inch notebook gives you plenty of mobility, but there is a bit of productivity lost because of the screen size. The second thing is the battery, which is very important as well if you want a lot of mobility. Netbooks might give you up to 8-10 hours of battery life, while a notebook with a big screen might only give you an hour or two.

Processing Power – the amount of CPU speed you get for your notebook will influence the amount of power used. A powerful CPU tends to take out a lot from your battery.

These three things are the biggest things you should consider when buying a new laptop for yourself. There are other things of course, like the size of the hard drive, the quality of the webcam or the sound system.

The Status of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a global phenomenon and it is being adopted by increasing numbers of organizations all over the world. There are many aspects of cloud computing. These include public clouds, private clouds, online cloud storage, software as a service, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service and so forth.

According to the 2013 Future of Cloud Computing Survey 75 percent of respondents use at least one kind of cloud platform. The main drivers are business orientated (52 percent) compare to 36 percent that are IT orientated. However the biggest growth areas tend to be IT orientated. These are big data, mobile, cloud backup, management of systems, security, and help desk. Reducing costs is seen as a major driver.

cloudAlthough the main application currently is Software-as-a-Service which is used by 63 percent of respondents, the fastest growing sector is infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), though it is thought that Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will be the dominating growth area in the future; 72 percent said that they would by using it within the next five years.

There remains certain reluctance about moving to the cloud, and the main concern is security. However fewer organizations than last year have security concerns. Last year 55 percent of non-cloud using respondents said that security was the main reason why they had not adopted the cloud, and this year that had fallen to 46 percent.

According to Doug Clark, the head of cloud computing at IBM UK, the main drivers of cloud computing in terms of adding value to an organization and marketing the organization as a service are intelligence, context, reach, pace, and economics. Intelligence concerns the power of data analytics and applying it in situations where it will bring about an improvement; context involves addressing the specific user requirements; reach involves exceeding the physical boundaries of the organization; pace is simply the ability to move rapidly and be flexible and adaptable; and economics concerns improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of IT resources that can be achieved by moving to the cloud;

Many organizations are successfully applying these factors and in doing so are making significant improvements to how their organizations are delivering to their customers. Some examples of this include Sci-Tech Daresbury which offers computing as a service through its ‘Blue Joule’ computer which it is claimed is the most powerful computer in the UK and is being used for such applications as climate modeling and the detection of diseases; Wimbledon tennis and other major sporting events are sharing cloud resources in response to sports fans demand peaks to deliver an improved experience to sports fans; and TP Vision the joint venture that produces and markets TV sets with the Philips brand uses the cloud for its smart TV services for managing TV software.

If you would like any further information on moving to the cloud, then please visit Mimecast.com; a software as a service company focused on unified email and data management.

Unblocked Games at School, A Few Solutions

If you’re interested in unblocked games at school, the truth is that the options are pretty much endless these days, thanks to the widespread use of mobile phones. As long as you have a smartphone with Internet access, you can play any game you want, without worrying that it will be blocked by the school.

Now, below you will see some of the games you can play on your phone, which are designed for iPhone and Android. Choose any of them, or visit the official marketplaces and pick the games you want.

If you’re looking for unblocked games at school because you want to play something online, and your only WiFi connection in the area that will allow you to use bigger amounts of bandwidth is the one the school provides, then there are options for that as well. Even though the school might be blocking certain sites from being loaded from their Internet connection, there always option. You might not be able to play Facebook games this way, but there are other options, with browser based games. In browser based games you actually don’t consume that much bandwidth, so you might not even need the Internet provided by the school to get online.

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