Computer Overhauls

'MacDefender' Malware Issue on OSX.

Macs have a pretty solid reputation as being 'virus-free.'  For the most part, Mac users don't have to install anti-virus software and worry the way PC users do.  Recently however, a malware program pretending to be a anti-virus software for OSX has become an issue.  So much of an issue, that Apple itself has posted a response, removal tips, and are releasing an update to the OS.

Cloud Computing and You

You've probably heard a lot about 'the cloud' lately.  Windows 7 commercials have PC users stating "To the cloud!," and then magically solve the issue at hand.  But what exactly is it?  And does it really fix everything?

The cloud is basically online storage.  When you save documents, mp3s, or any kind of file on your PC or laptop, it's stored on your hard drive, taking up space.  The cloud allows you to save that same file, but instead of on your PC, it saves on the internet...in the air...or cloud...sort of magically.  Why is this helpful?

The Cuil Search Engine really sucks. (but don't tell the MSM)

Have you heard about the new "Google Killer", the Cuil search engine?  Well, the main stream media (MSM) sure has.

Ex-Googlers reinvent web search
Ain't It Cuil? New Search  Engine Challenges Google
Will Cuil Kill Google?
How cool is Cuill?
Former Employees of Google Prepare Rival Search Engine
Google This--Rival Search Engine Launched Today

But Cuil is horrible.  It fails at basic things like finding "mexican restaurants 11232" and more complex things like "how many days are in a year" (note the sarcasm, and yet Cuil returns 0 results).

So far investors have thrown more than 33 million dollars into Cuil.  No doubt too many of their dollars went into slick packaging and the marketing hype, but hype should not be mistaken for "buzz".  Buzz is always product driven (think the iPhone), and hype is marketing driven (the Segway, Cuil).  Consumers are smart enough to parse out the differences and Cuil is already generating backlash from consumers and the media alike after the hype (like it so often does in cases like this) failed to meet the product on the ground.

So how did this happen?  How did so many people get tricked into believing that this new search engine would in any shape or form challence Google?  Part of the answer is the media's reliance on corprorate spokepeople for access.  If the media wants a juicy quote or information they can't go about pissing off the people who give them that access.  This is inherent to the business and is unfortuetnly a neceassary evil.  But at some point it seems that healthy skepticism (epsecially when non-tech writers write about new tech) mostly has gone out the window. 

In this case all the media needed to know was that two ex-Google employees with big money behind them had created a search engine to challenge Google -- facts (i.e. that it sucks) were not part of the narrative.  Or they were part of the narrative, but an inconvenient one.

The lesson of course of that skeptiscm remain at the forefront of good journalism, just as it's at the foreront of smart consuming. 

Xbox 360 Price Drops

The not so secret 360 price drop has hit retailers, and the 20GB version with HDMI and an updated cooling system (important for addressing the reliability issues of previous generation 360) can now be had for only $299.

Buy.com has the refurbished "premium" system for only $222 shipped, although it lacks both hard drive and HDMI.  Although it's easy to add a hard drive, the increased reliability of the new units going for $299 makes them a better long term buy.

Buyers' Guide for Late Year 2008 and the Holidays

There are only two times to buy technology: now or never -- with a few caveats!

Mid Summer is always an exciting time for technology as the manufacturers rush to get their products to market before the crazed Holiday shopping season.  This year is no exception, as Intel is rushing to get their new Nehalen processors out, ATI and Nvidia churn out their next generation of graphics, and Google spars with Apple as they try and get out their Android phone before Christmas to compete with the iPhone 2.0.

For tech consumers, it's an exciting time but also a confusing one, filled with trepidation about buying a product that might not look so hot as soon as the latest gadget comes out to replace it.  Last year, anyone who purchased a HD-DVD player was almost immedietely slammed with a case of buyers' remorse as Blu-Ray quickly overtook HD-DVD as the next format of choice for all the major Holywood studios.  Muddying the waters, it wasn't at all clear, even with a good amount of research, exactly what type of DVD player was going to win. 

This year doesn't have any epic battles like HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray, but as always, it's best to do your homework before making any major decisions.  Regardless of what you purchase this year, remember to always follow this creed: the time to buy tech is now or never.  There will always be a better product down the road, and waiting and waiting and waiting is an endless feedback loop that will always leave you unsatisified.  It's best to do your research and pull the trigger immediately.

Here are a view general tips on making good decisions as the holiday season approaches:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Vista

PROS:

• Aero Interface makes using PC a much more elegant experience
• Directx10 support for next generation games and multimedia
• More intuitive file organization and hardware integration
  

CONS:

• Requires a high-end PC to run properly
• Expensive for most useful "Ultimate" 64 bit edition
• Requires re-learning some features to use efficiently

I used to hate the whole idea of Vista -- a unnecessarily bulky operating system from Microsoft that didn't offer much if any advantages to make it worth the price and hassle of upgrading.  In short: just another garbage Microsoft product.

I still think most Microsoft products are garbage -- but Vista isn't one of them.  At least not the Vista I'm running: 64 bit Vista Ultimate SP1.  I couldn't imagine running the 32 bit versions (which limit the amount of RAM to well under my 4 GB), or the non heavily patched (SP1) version I'm running.  Vista was the wild wild west for compatibility when it was released -- but now driver and software support has caught up and the 64 bit version of Ultimate allows the power craving Vista the advantages it needs to to show off its shine.

My Vista Desktop -- the background is a looped movie!

Sure, the UAC, a feature that asks permissions for the silliest things (say, installing anti-virus software) is horrible and the first thing I did was disable it.  Sure, it's still not was pretty as Leopard (Mac's latest) or as ruthlessly cool and efficient as the free and open source Unbuntu (Linux'  current darling): but it's loads superior to XP -- as long as your machine has the hardware to run it with no slowdown.

The good news is that now is a great time to buy a new PC and cost of a plenty powerful Internet and Multimedia powerhouse is shrinking.  I recently assembled a budget Vista buster (and fairly heavy gaming system) for under $800.

My specs:

Processor: Intel e8400 3.0GHZ (overclocked to 3.2GHZ)
RAM: G-Skill PC6400 800MHZ DDR2
Hard Drive: WD-CAVIER SE16 640GB
Video: XFX Nvidia GeForce 8800GT

With these specs the Vista experience score gives me a max 5.9 rating on everything except processor, where I score a 5.7 due to the limits of the dual core. (But don't be fooled, the Intel e8400 is a great buy for myriad other reasons than just raw power, although maybe a quad core is in my near future!)

Still, with all other areas maxed out the system flys along even with heavy multi-tasking.

So, Can You Still Exchange Those HD-DVD Players?

According to this excerpt from the New York Times, HD-DVD is as good as dead:

Variety is reporting that the last two major studios backing HD DVD — NBC Universal and Paramount — are opening the door for a  switch to Blu-ray....(Earlier) Warner Brothers, which had been issuing movies in both formats, decided to go exclusively with Sony’s Blu-ray format....So what appeared to be a stalemate may, with one relatively small move by Warner, now turn out to be a quick victory for Sony.

It's the death of a salesman for Toshiba and Microsoft.

So that's that.  This confirms the "format war" never was going to be about PS3 or Xbox 360 sales, or even superior consumer utility -- it was about which format had more media.  And now that format is Blu-Ray -- and it's not even close.

Not surprisingly, HD-DVD players can now be had for as low as $129.

 

What We Got This Xmas

What We Got

It was a very Merry Christmas for all of us here at Computer Overhauls.  In fact, we had our best sales month ever, set all kinds of records, and still managed to take some time off. 

A big thanks to everyone who shopped at Computer Overhauls this Holiday season and we look forward to serving you in the New Year.

Prez Adam Sanderson

Our fearless leader Adam Sanderson got a Toshiba HD-DVD player for fun and a "roll away" alarm clock to keep him productive.   Adam's new HD-DVD player the Toshiba A3:

The A3 adds to Adam's already impressive home-theater setup, featuring surround sound, variable lighting and a hi-def projector lighting up his wall sized screen.  Maybe if I'm lucky he'll invite us all over some night.

Sales Director (and blog writer) Matt Horon

I have to admit, I ask everyone for money every year -- 'cause I know what tech gear I want and how to get the best price.  So thanks Mom and Dad for the ridiculous deal I got on this surround sound system to compliment my new Xbox 360. The 600W Pioneer HTS-G51 isn't a high-end surround sound system, but for $99 it can't be beat.  For those of you that haven't experienced surround sound and are looking for a great intro system this is it.   

My new surround sound system:

The surround sound compliments the Xbox 360 perfectly.  I've been in the market for a next-gen console for awhile now, the PS3 pulled at my heart with launches like Gran Turismo 3 and GTA 5 coming out.  But the 360 has more games out now and is a little easier on the wallet as well.

Lead Tech Paul Gayton

Paul comes from a family of nerds, and I mean that in every nice way possible.  His brother plays video games for a living and Paul loves him some video games as well.  His adoring GF dropped some serious loot on a brand new gaming PC.  With a quad-core (!!!) processor, a Nvidia GeForce 8800 graphics card, 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive this is a serious machine.  About as top of line as is available at the moment.  Paul's been playing Crisis, with it's straight up ARE YOU KIDDING ME graphics.

Crysis Screenshot:

Pretty sick right?   With some system requirements as out of this world as its graphics, a machine like Paul's is needed to run it.  But hey, if you got it flaunt it!

Electronics Engineer Misbah

It was a bah humbug holiday for our Pakistani born electronics engineer Misbah Ghuri.  With upheaval in his homeland and no real tech gifts either.  He did get a nice pair of aviators thought.  The ladies love them almost as much as his cute smile.

 

gOS: A Little Linux for Everyone? NSFMF.

Linux is big business these days, and gOS has the ear of trendsetting PC maker Everex and also a spot on Walmart's shelves running Everex's $199 desktop.  The units quickly sold out among limited supply.

So here I am, caught in the hype and blogging from one of our D600's running gOS.  (At least until I couldn't add a picture to my post without Firefox crashing.  Now I'm back on my trusty IBM Thinkpad T23)

I'll say one thing: gOS is damn pretty.   Our mostly novice clientale agreed: I setup a Dell D600 running gOS on our 32" LCD in the showroom and encouraged customers to play around with it and give me feedback -- overwhelmingly people said this was a good looking OS.

Pretty right?

Anyone familiar with Macs will appreciate the graphical icons for launching programs.  gOS has made launching Firefox, Gmail, YouTube and a plethora of Google powered tools easy enough.

But it's whats under the hood that matters most:  Until gOS makes computers more user friendly then the alternatives from Microsoft and Apple it has little practical utility for the average user. 

What $199 Laptops Can and Can't Do

We've been selling $199 laptops for over a year now.  We get a lot of calls from people that assume it's a scam, it must be a joke, "why so cheap", etc.  Novice computer users are usually the most skeptical.  The Used Laptop Blog, like ourselves, focuses on laptops for $199 and up -- and they have some sage advice for laptop buyers:

Many people think they need a brand new laptop and want to purchase the latest and greatest. In most cases a refurbished laptop is more than adequate, unless your are a gamer or power user. Your connection speed matters more than the CPU or the amount of RAM.